


You Got Cool

by explosionshark



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-08-29 12:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16744141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/pseuds/explosionshark
Summary: “Why are you here?” Adora asks.Catra steps in close, gratified when Adora takes a shaky step back and then another, til her back is up against the wall of the gym. “Would you believe that I missed you?”--When Adora transfers from Horde Academy to Bright Moon Prep in their final year of high school, she and Catra pretty much stop talking. Until they don't.





	1. If You're Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song by mansions. chapter title from a different song by mansions. inspired by this super cool [fanart](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins). major thanks to arys for being cool about me playing in their sandbox a little. 
> 
> s/o to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) for the beta and to amy for enabling me.

It’s been three months now and they haven’t really talked.

Not that they’ve had many opportunities. Sure, Adora tried at first, but there wasn’t much of a point to it — no amount of apologies or platitudes really amounted to anything, not when she was gone, having abandoned Catra to the lonely halls of Horde Academy for the glimmering expanses of Bright Moon Prep at the first opportunity.

Hard to blame her, really. Full ride on a softball scholarship, brand new friends. No more Vice Principal Weaver riding her ass, no more mind-numbing hours of detention at Catra’s side, no more getting caught up in Catra’s pointless fights. 

It only took two weeks of dodging Adora’s calls, of slipping out the window when she showed up at the dorms, of turning around and walking away when she ran into her lurking around all their old off-campus haunts before Adora got the message and stopped trying. Which is fine. A little earlier than Catra really expected from the girl that promised they’d look out for each other forever, but not surprising.

So Adora got a better offer. She moved on. It was bound to happen eventually, and thinking otherwise, even for a minute, had been stupid.

Bright Moon’s all the way across town, which makes it seem like it’d be easier to avoid her, but Catra’s seen her around more than she’d like. At the mall, carefree and laughing, flanked by two (or more) of her new preppy friends; in the park chasing after a frisbee and tripping all over herself, grinning so wide and so bright it’s hard to look at, like staring right into the sun; tucked into the corner booth at the cafe on Main next to that one girl, the one with soft looking purple hair and those short shorts, the one that’s always making her smile that soft, rare smile Catra never expected to see directed at anyone else.

She wears her hair down these days, mostly. It’s lighter - sun bleached, from a summer spent outdoors with these new friends, instead of crammed into whatever dark, air-conditioned place Adora and Catra could hole up in to avoid Weaver and the endless list of chores and extra-curriculars she manifested every break to keep them out of trouble.

She looks good, though Catra would never say it to her. Like a new person, almost; less severe without the ponytail, more approachable. It’s no wonder at all she’s got so many friends now.

Not that Catra’s alone, not anymore. There’s Scorpia and Entrapta across the hall, whose steady presences on campus range from convenient to actually welcome, depending on the day. There’s Lonnie and Kyle, whenever Catra can stomach that much extra company. There’s Octavia, when she needs to pick a fight and blow off some steam.

Catra’s doing fine. Better than fine. She’s hit a new personal record for skipped classes, but her grades are holding anyway. As measure of success go, maybe that’s a little sad, but it’s still something. Not everyone can be sports superstars with big yearbook spreads and write-ups in the school paper and crowds of simpering fans.

It’s not that she _misses_ Adora or anything. It’s not even that she goes looking for her. The truth is, she totally forgot it was a game day when she ends up walking past the field at Bright Moon. She didn’t even mean to end up on this side of town, she’d just zoned out walking, desperate to get away from the Academy for a while. So when the cheer goes up and calls her attention and she catches a glimpse of Adora in that ridiculous white and gold softball uniform, it catches her off guard. Piques her curiosity.

Curiosity is all it is that has Catra hurling her backpack over the chainlink fence and scrambling after it herself, slinking through the lush green field to rest in the shade of the bleachers next the diamond. She sticks around through the rest of the game to kill time, cross legged in the shadows, half-heartedly finishing off some long-overdue homework through the more boring parts.

Adora plays well, she always does. She was always the Academy’s ringer, the batter they’d always counted on to turn things around when the rest of the team’s firmly mediocre efforts just couldn’t cut it. It’s no wonder they’ve lost nearly every game since she’d been poached. She’s earning that swanky new room and board with a kind of gleeful efficiency, knocking ball after ball way into the outfield and rounding the bases with an ease that would seem almost malicious from anyone else.

Funny how these things always seemed endless when Catra attended before. This one seems to fly by, and it’s only the triumphant cheers and stomping from the bleachers overhead that alert her to the fact that it’s over. When she looks up, she watches the Bright Moon players rush out of dugout, sweeping into the field to lift Adora up onto their shoulders like the players in some cheesy sports flick.

It makes something in Catra’s stomach twist sickly and she scrambles to her feet a moment later, hastily shoving her scattered books back into her bag. She doesn’t mean to glance back over her shoulder as she slips out from under the bleachers, but of course the moment she does is the same moment Adora finally looks over.

She feels herself go hot all over when their eyes meet, anger and embarrassment and something else that aches without a name all swimming up inside of her in a moment. She’s got to be blushing. Adora looks stunned and then hopeful and Catra tears herself away before she has to watch Adora get distracted again, turn away, forget she’s there.

It doesn’t feel good to leave, but it feels better than it did to be left.

X.x.x

It’s two nights after the softball game when it happens.

It starts with Catra’s phone, ringing out twice, the contact flashing ‘DON’T ANSWER’ across the screen as it vibrates on her nightstand. She thinks about turning it off, resolves to if it rings a third time, but it doesn’t.

It’s fifteen minutes later that she hears the scrabbling, once familiar, outside her bedroom window. She tenses under the sheets, on edge, knowing already that it’s got to be Adora but unable to help herself from conjuring a half dozen other, somehow worse scenarios involving killers with hook hands and half-starved vampires, and she’s really got to stop watching horror movies with Entrapta so late at night.

But then the window slides open and Adora slips into the room, stumbling against the dresser in a way she never had before.

Catra’s moved things around since then.

She had to, after Adora left. The room for two was just way too big and empty and sad without her. 

“Oops,” Adora says quietly when the lamp she’d tried to stop from falling tumbles out of her hands and thuds into the carpet. 

“What are you doing here?” Catra hisses, furious that she can’t lay into Adora at full volume.

Weaver would have her head for sneaking someone into the dorms. It wouldn’t even matter that Adora showed up uninvited. No one ever believes Catra anyway.

Slowly, too carefully, Adora rights the fallen lamp and slides the window soundlessly shut. She glances across the room, to the empty space where her bed used to be, mouth turning down into a deep frown at its absence. Catra feels a hot surge of petty satisfaction at Adora’s dismay, then an unwelcome twinge of reflexive guilt when she swallows hard, looking suddenly smaller and less sure in the faint moonlight than Catra’s ever seen her in this room.

“ _Adora_ ,” Catra prompts, burying her remorse under a fresh wave of annoyance.

“Hi,” Adora says, finally, turning around to face Catra in her bed. She’s wearing her Bright Moon letterman over a white tee and jeans. It looks so out of place, so wrong here in their room, that Catra immediately hates it. Wants to tell her to take it off, but she can’t push the words out past her lips, pressed down into a hard line to stop them from trembling. “I mean, hey.”

“What are you doing here?” Catra repeats, shakier than she meant to be. She clears her throat and glares, hoping it’s harsh enough to make up for the unsteadiness of her voice. 

“I just, uh, do you mind if I-?” Adora points at the foot of the bed, moves to sit but Catra’s faster, always has been, kicks out at Adora’s backside as she starts to lower it down, sends her stumbling almost to the floor. “Okay, nevermind.”

“Get _out_ of here,” Catra orders, casting an anxious glance at her door.

“I’d really rather stay,” Adora mumbles, crossing her arms like she’s going to make a stand, but still scuffing her feet around in the carpet in that nervous way that’s always told Catra when she’s allowed to push her luck.

“Oh, so _now_ you want to stay,” Catra says and regrets it immediately because instead of being all cutting and distant like she wanted, it just seems vulnerable, bitter.

“Catra,” Adora says, voice all soft and Catra just _hates_ it.

“Shut up,” Catra glowers, before she can start in on the useless apologies again. The constant litanies of I’m Sorrys and This Doesn’t Have To Change Anythings only ever left her feeling smaller and more pathetic. Fragile and in need of coddling, like Adora really thought she was stupid enough to fall for those weak lines anyway. Like it changed anything about Adora just _leaving_ her here. “Go home, Adora.”

“I thought,” Adora swallows, hands clenching around empty air at her sides. She clears her throat and tries again, “I thought, when I saw you at my game the other day—”

Catra feels her cheeks flush red all over again. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ She never should have let herself onto the field that afternoon. She never should have stayed.

She never thought these things through and she always, _always_ paid for it.

“It didn’t mean anything,” she blurts, wincing at how defensive and hollow the protest sounds even to her.

Mercifully, Adora doesn’t call her out, just keeps going like she never spoke at all. “I thought maybe it meant that you might want to see me again.”

“Well, it _didn’t_ ,” Catra says, voice quiet but hard enough for Adora to flinch. It makes the space under Catra’s ribs feel tight and achey. She tells herself it’s a good feeling. “I was just bored. Curious. Wanted to see what the fuss was all about, what you really left for.”

Adora flinches at that and Catra preens a little at the victory. She shuffles awkwardly in place and Catra thinks for a moment that this is it, Adora’s going to take the hint, she’ll slip back out the window and leave Catra all alone again. She tries to convince herself the sudden hollowness echoing through her chest is relief.

“It’s still weird, sleeping alone, isn’t it?” Adora says after a long minute of silence, glancing around the empty room again, chewing her lip.

 _Don’t_ , Catra tries to say, but the words stick in her throat. She can feel herself shaking, so _angry_ and so lonely and too weak to do anything about it. She swallows and swallows and swallows and Adora keeps talking in the silence.

“I really, really miss you.”

Her eyes are hot and they hurt and Catra lays herself back down, presses her face into the pillow, tries to ignore how it’s suddenly damp against her skin.

“Can’t I just…?”

She keeps her face tucked firmly away, but hears it when Adora lowers herself to the floor. She can hear the rustling of fabric, the soft sounds of a body moving against the carpet. It’s a hard floor, Catra knows it’s not comfortable. Part of her, something desperate and utterly contemptible, wants to roll over, to scoot up against the wall like they used to do and pull up the sheet and beckon Adora into the bed next to her, to curl up into Adora’s side and breathe in her smell, fresh cut grass and sweat and melon body spray.

She counts her breaths and doesn’t move instead.

“I’m in a single too. For weeks and weeks I barely slept at all. I missed the sound of you breathing at night,” Adora whispers after a hushed eternity, because of course it would have been an inconceivable mercy for her to just _be quiet_.

 _Why did you leave, then? Why won’t you come back? How was it so easy for you? What could I have done to have been good enough to keep you here?_ Catra wants to ask.

“One of my friends over there, well, they noticed I guess and they asked me about it and they got me this app. So, now I put on, um, box fan sounds when I go to sleep. They’ve got so many options. Did you know a box fan sounds way different than a ceiling fan? They even have canned air conditioner noises. Not that I need those, I’ve got the real thing. But if I didn’t, I might, I mean, the silence is just— but, I guess background sounds help a lot of people and—”

Catra breathes out hard into her pillow, hot breath warming her face as she rolls it to the side just enough to plead, “Adora, shut _up_.”

Miraculously, she does.

Catra waits and listens, tries to lie as still and quiet as she can, like she had when she was a little girl, freshly awake from a nightmare and convinced that one false move would summon the monsters of her dreams into reality. It takes long endless minutes, maybe hours, before she hears Adoras breath even out into the rhythm of sleep and she lets herself ache at the sound of it because she’d missed it too.

She sits up in bed and lets herself look over, finally.

Adora on the floor looks so out of place, jacket shrugged off and balled up under her head like a pillow. It must be cold, from the way she’s curled into herself, looking nearly as small and lonely as Catra feels.

For one brief, stupid second she thinks about sliding down off the bed, pulling her blankets down with her and curling up at Adora’s side. As if another night spent next to Catra could make her give up her cushy new life, all those shiny new opportunities and shiny new friends. Like one night on the floor could somehow draw her back when _years_ of Catra’s unflinching devotion hadn’t been enough to keep her in the first place.

It’s bitter and it hurts all over again to think about, but the sting isn’t enough to keep Catra in bed. Soundlessly, she rises, shuffling carefully across the room, far enough to gently drape a blanket over Adora’s body before clambering back into her own bed.

She pretends not to hear the telltale hitch in Adora’s breath that gives her away.

She pretends not to hear when, hours later, as the first pale fingers of dawn slip through the slats of her blinds, Adora draws herself up off the floor and lays the folded blanket at Catra’s feet, slipping back out the window without a word. 

X.x.x

In the end, she just gets sick of the skittish bullshit, feeling so cowardly, so on-the-run. Holed up and pathetic in her room, picking her way across town like some nerd trying to hold onto her lunch money. It’s not who she is, not at all.

Catra doesn’t get shaken down, Catra gives the shake downs.

So when Entrapta shows them the email she got, inviting her to the Bright Moon Prep homecoming dance, it feels like the perfect opportunity.

“The invitation won’t even get us in,” Entrapta frowns down at the screen of her phone. “They just forgot to take me off the mailing list when I transferred, but they’ll check student records when we get there.”

“So we crash,” Catra says easily, feeling a familiar thrum of delicious excitement pooling under her skin. “Show those Bright Moon losers how to really party, Horde Style.”

Scorpia doesn’t need any convincing and Entrapta agrees readily enough after. Catra spends the better part of the next week putting out her feelers, until something of a small mob is rallied to join her at the dance. It’s not hard to rile up some willing trouble makers, not when the rivalry between their two schools is as old and intense as it is. The only tricky part is making sure they’re all discreet enough not to tip off the faculty. If Weaver, or worse, Principal Hordak, found out, Catra would be stuck on janitorial detail for the rest of the semester.

But it all goes surprisingly smoothly, and when the night finally comes, Catra feels _good._

She hasn’t seen Adora at all since that night she slept on the floor, but it hardly seems to matter, slipping in through some unattended back door to Bright Moon, letting Entrapta lead them down the halls toward the gym.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirrored back of a trophy case, artfully rumpled in her suit, with Scorpia on her arm and notes that she looks cool and untouchable and feels a surge of confidence she hadn’t known she was missing for the past three months.

The ambience in the gym is _intense_ , a little overwhelming. Lights all flashing different colors in time with the music, every surface of the walls plastered with professional looking decorations, transforming an admittedly huge and already swanky high school gymnasium into an ethereal, otherworldly feeling forest landscape. Catra doesn’t even bother to contain her sneer as she glances around, thinking of all the generous donations from rich parents that must have paid for all the glitz and glamor.

She spots Adora before Adora sees her, startled to see her wearing Academy red instead of Bright Moon Prep gold and white. She’s dancing with a small crowd of students, her little _friend_ dancing beside her in a shimmery purple dress the same shade of lilac as her hair. Something about the combination of Adora in that dress, looking so at home, so happy in this place, makes Catra’s throat go dry. She almost wants to turn around, go home, but then Adora glances over and their eyes lock again and she sees the way Adora’s rhythm falters, that nervous way she swallows, the way her breezy smile melts into an uneasy frown and Catra feels her power return.

She watches as the rest of Adora’s friends catch on, following her gaze to where Catra and Scorpia stand at the edge of the dance floor, watches as their expressions crumble one by one, ranging from anxious to downright thunderous.

And then Adora’s stepping toward them, her cronies trailing behind and Catra gives Scorpia’s hand a gentle tug and they slip back into the crowd. For someone so statuesque and imposing, Scorpia can blend into a crowd almost as easily as Catra can, when she’s trying; a skill she must have honed at all those fancy, high society dinners that her family used to drag her around to. Catra wonders if this silly, gilded farce in a high school gym reminds her at all of those upper crust affairs.

They keep a low profile for a while longer. If there’s anything Catra’s become good at, it’s not being found when she doesn’t want to be, so it’s not hard to keep an eye on Adora from afar. She and Scorpia make their rounds, sharing a few dances during the songs that don’t suck so much, and running into more Academy students than Catra honestly expected to actually see tonight.

This is going to be fun.

But her luck can’t hold out all night, turns out.

Adora catches up to her alone, hunched sketchily over an unattended punch bowl. Scorpia’s off leading the chaperone charged with its defense on a wild goose chase for a missing cell phone while Catra upends an entire flask of bottom shelf vodka into it.

When a firm grip seizes her elbow she nearly loses the flask, a sharp spike of panic surging up her spine. It’d be tricky to get herself out of this one. Even if she managed to give some uptight Bright Moon dweeb the slip, Adora’s friends had already seen her, if they decided to ID her, it’d be all over.

But it’s Adora’s voice in her ear, hissing, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Catra relaxes immediately, tipping the flask again with a little more flourish until Adora huffs and yanks her arm back again. “Hey, Adora,” she purrs, biting back a grin at the way Adora’s lips part at the sound of her voice.

“Catra, what’s going on?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she smirks, waggling the flask in the space between their faces. “Livening things up a little, that’s all. You Bright Moon kids could use a lesson or two in cutting loose.”

“You could get in _so_ much trouble, Catra,” Adora says lowly, fingers tightening on Catra’s elbow.

“What, are you gonna rat me out?”

Adora huffs again, eyes narrowing, but doesn’t answer and Catra wonders if she’s really considering it. The possibility doesn’t seem as shocking or even as disappointing as Catra would have expected.

“I didn’t think so,” Catra says, with a confidence she doesn’t really feel. “Thirsty, Adora?”

She reaches back for a cup but Adora grabs her wrist, wrestles the flask out of it and drags her off into a corner. She unscrews the cap and takes a deep gulp right out of the flask. Catra sees the way her mouth twists up, watches as Adora’s eyes water, but she doesn’t cough, doesn’t break Catra’s gaze.

“Was that supposed to impress me?” she wonders aloud, projecting a thick layer of boredom to cover the fact that it had _worked_. “Guess all these preppy dweebs haven’t defanged you totally yet, huh?”

“Why are you here?” Adora asks.

Catra steps in close, gratified when Adora takes a shaky step back and then another, til her back is up against the wall of the gym. Catra reaches out, plucks the flask from her grip and takes a rakish sip for herself before stashing it back in her coat pocket.

“Would you believe that I missed you?” she murmurs huskily, still close. She isn’t sure what she’s doing, just knows she’s pleased and then furious with how Adora’s breath hitches at her words, the look of bare longing that clouds the mistrust on her face for a single, unbearably sincere moment.

Because it’s not _fair._ Adora shouldn’t be allowed to want this, shouldn’t miss Catra for real, not when she’s the one that left.

“Something tells me that’s not it,” Adora says through something like a sigh after a long tense moment.

Catra eases back, almost grateful for the way the tension breaks, and rolls her shoulders easily. “Always so perceptive, huh?”

Adora remains silent, face stony and unreadable in the flashing lights.

Catra sighs, long and put-upon, and stretches, because it’s less fun with Adora not playing along. “Maybe I was just curious.”

“About what?”

“About what exactly you _love_ so much about this place. How much better it is than the Academy. About who you are to these people.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the same person to them as I was to you. As I’ve always been. Nothing’s _changed_ , Catra, except where I go to school and the fact that my best friend won’t even talk to me anymore without pulling some weird head games, apparently.”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Catra laughs, no guilt at all this time when the harshness of it makes Adora flinch again. “Big jock on campus. Nothing’s changed? Take a look at your entourage. I’ve been watching you all night, watching everyone fall all over themselves to talk to you. Lie to yourself all you want, Adora, but don’t lie to me.”

“So, what, you’re mad because people like me? You’re mad I have friends?”

“I’m mad because you _left_ and now you’re acting like _I’m_ the one who screwed _you_ over.”

“You totally tossed me aside the minute I did something you didn’t like—”

God, how can she not get it? “ _You—_ ”

“Adora!”

Catra winces, schooling her features into casual disinterest and discreetly stepping back out of Adora’s personal space. She’s not sure how they’d gotten so close in the first place, doesn’t know quite what to make of it when Adora swallows hard watching her shuffle back, looking almost like she’s sorry to see her go.

“Oh, look, it’s the entourage,” Catra says, eyeing Adora’s lackeys with naked disdain.

“Is she bothering you?” asks the little purple one, glaring hard at Catra in a way that she’s sure is _meant_ to be intimidating.

“Oh, please, spare me the overprotective girlfriend routine, Sparkle,” Catra sneers.

“It’s _Glimmer_ —”

“—She’s _not_ my girlfriend.”

They speak at the same time, equally heated, and the silence that follows as they stare awkwardly at each other is just _too_ delicious. Catra laughs, letting her neck roll back for the sounds to just bubble out of her.

“Whatever,” she dismisses. She spots Scorpia lingering a few feet away, and inclines her head to call her over. “You guys work that out. I think I’ve left my own date alone long enough.”

Catra offers her arm and Scorpia takes it smoothly, offering a jaunty wave to a simmering Adora and they stroll off together. Catra feels ten feet taller, almost giddy as they disappear into the crowd again.

“Mission accomplished?” Scorpia asks lowly once they’re far enough away.

“Give them a minute to clear out and then I’ll prove it to you,” Catra says, glancing back over in the direction of the punch.

There’s a restless sort of tension in the air by the time Homecoming King and Queen are announced. Catra’s not surprised when it’s Adora that wins, alongside one of her other little friends. Some chump named Bow, handsome and kind of fey, light on his feet like some high fashion model when they share a dance. It’s entirely, almost embarrassingly platonic, but it makes Catra’s skin feel too tight all the same.

“At the end of this dance,” Catra murmurs to Scorpia as they watch Bow lead Adora around the dancefloor, like something out of a disney film. “Go let ‘em know.”

She slips away immediately to do just that.

And Catra can’t help herself, tells herself it’s just to get under Adora’s skin, to psych her out, but she finds herself elbowing through the crowd. She shoves Fancy Boy away with a rough palm to his shoulder and cuts in, biting back a smirk at the way Adora gasps in response to Catra’s hand on her waist.

“What?” Catra murmurs, low and dangerous and a little out of control. “Too good to dance with your old friend?”

“That was really rude to Bow,” Adora says, but takes Catra offered hand anyway.

“Yeah, I feel just _awful_ ,” Catra says flatly, spinning Adora in her arms, pleased that despite the crackling of tension between them she’s not fighting, just allowing herself to be lead. “I’ll have my people call his people. Smooth things over.”

“What are you doing, Catra?” Adora asks, a little breathless. Up close Catra can see the makeup she’s put on. Light eye shadow, lip gloss, and something on her cheeks that makes them sparkle a little in the shimmering lights of the dance floor. It makes Catra’s stomach roil tightly, conjuring the thought of Glimmer somewhere nearby, no doubt watching them and seething.

Something about the other girl’s surefire annoyance at seeing Catra and Adora dance soothes a bit of the ache that comes along with the certainty with which Catra knows she was the one to make Adora up like this. Her own half-hearted eyeliner feels threadbare and thoroughly unimpressive in comparison.

“Adora, you really don’t buy that I’m just here to dance? See how the other half lives? Enjoy the party a little?” Catra asks.

With a look equal parts guilt and determination, Adora shakes her head, gnawing the gloss off her bottom lip.

“What, so, you think I just like. Showed up and infiltrated your stupid Bright Goon event just to be a menace and generally ruin the evening for everyone here?”

Adora pauses at that, expression falling into sheepishness at having it laid out so bluntly. “Well. I mean, I guess—”

“So, _so_ perceptive,” Catra sighs, disentangling herself from Adora’s grasp. “But, as always, just a little too late.”

The timing’s nearly perfect, lights cutting out abruptly and the easy, danceable tune from the speakers immediately replaced with something harsh and industrial sounding. All around the room Bright Moon students groan and complain, covering their ears and looking around for the culprit. Catra slinks back into the crowd, pleased as various whoops of glee rise up from different points in the gymnasium, the Horde members finally cutting loose.

It descends quickly into chaos. Drinks are spilled, clothes are ruined, a small army of live frogs is let loose on the dance floor. It all ends when the fire alarm is pulled, activating the gym’s overhead sprinklers and effectively ruining anyone’s chances of salvaging their big night out.

Catra beats a hasty retreat, laughing and breathless. The Horde students have all scattered, everyone knowing better than to all leave the same way, but those of them that have retreated with her won’t stop chattering excitedly and slapping her on the back.

“Aren’t you worried?” Kyle asks later, when a handful of them have crowded up onto the roof of the cafeteria to sneak a smoke. “I mean, they all saw you and they know who you are. They know you were in on it. If they tell, everything’s gonna get pinned on you.”

“Don’t care,” Catra says, not sure if she should be worried when she finds she actually means it. “Worth it.”

She thinks about that stunned look on Adora’s face when Catra glanced back on her way out of the building, soaked through and ridiculous in her little crown. She thinks about the way the fabric of her dress felt under Catra’s fingertips as they danced, closer than they’ve been in months. She thinks about that defiant, expectant look on Adora’s face when she’d choked back that mouthful of vodka earlier, how it warmed Catra up from the inside out to know she’d only ever done it at all to prove something to Catra.

Catra knows without a doubt she’d do the whole night over again in a heartbeat.


	2. Comeback Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You really expect us to believe that you and Adora weren’t dating?” Lonnie presses.
> 
> “Yes!” Catra shouts, ducking her head embarassed when she realizes her theatrics have attracted the attention of other tables. She lowers her voice, continuing, “How’d you even get that impression in the first place?”
> 
> “How could we _not?”_
> 
> \---
> 
> Catra gets in a tussle. Adora shows up. It's weird, but not as much as it could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the song by mansions. chapter title from a the song by sleigh bells. still inspired by this sick [au](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins) by arys, who was nice enough to give me their blessing for this fic. also between the first chapter and now this thing doubled in estimated length. so. enjoy that. 
> 
> big thanks to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) for the beta again!

Everything changes after homecoming.

The seams of whatever had kept her in suspense are ripped wide open and Catra’s _free_ again, confident in a way she’s missed, finally feeling like something other than wounded for the first time since Adora left.

And it’s like Adora’s finally _awake_ , no more of that simpering, apologetic bullshit.

No, not at all. Now she’s pushing back.

Now she’s _pissed_.

It’s been pretty awesome.

It’s just that Adora’s _so easy_ to rile up. And her dweeb-ass little friends are even easier than _that_. And Catra’s never had any reservations about low hanging fruit. A meal is a meal.

There’s a dynamic now, at least.

Catra gets to be an asshole and Adora gets to be sick of it and it’s not _good_ like they were before but it’s still better because at least now Catra knows how to _act_ around Adora again.

It’s better this way, Catra has to admit. And if she doesn’t spend too long thinking about it, it hardly bothers her at all that in spite of everything that’s happened, she still needs to see Adora this badly, still wants to be around her even if it is just to heckle her at softball practice before security can chase her off, or to ‘accidentally’ spill a slushie on her at the food court at the mall, or to lurk around the cafes Adora likes so that Catra can steal her mobile orders before she gets there to pick them up. 

But when she _does_ think about it, usually during a long sleepless night alone, blowing smoke out the window of her room because she almost _wants_ to get caught, if only for the company, it gets kind of impossible to ignore that a year ago, she’d have already kicked anyone’s ass for messing with Adora this way even once. 

It’s a realization that never fails to make her feel utterly fractured, a vase carelessly smashed and glued back together in a hurry; barely staying together, pieces all in the wrong place, each jagged shard a disparate, aching want.

It’s confusing.

It _sucks_.

And it usually gives her a headache that persists well into the following morning, when she’s bleary-eyed and late for class and racking up more detentions now than she’s sure she’ll be able to serve out before graduation.

So, she pushes it aside and tries to concentrate on the high that goes along with the stupid, petty victories she’s been carving out along the way.

A meal is a meal.

Besides, it’s not like Adora’s some defenseless geek. She’s the star player on the softball team of the city’s most prestigious private school and cashing in on all the associated perks. Every prissy idiot at Bright Moon’s in love with her. Colleges all over the state are practically rolling out red carpets for her. She’s doing better than she’s ever been, Catra’s sure. What difference does it make if a few times a week Catra shows up to remind Adora that not everyone’s so easily impressed? How bad is it, really, to remind Adora of where she came from? What she gave up?

Adora can do what she wants. It’s not like there’s anything Catra can do to stop her. But it doesnt mean she’s got to be anyone’s doormat. It doesn’t mean she has to pretend she’s just _fine_ with being lied to and abandoned and replaced.

She might have been easy to leave, but she won’t be easy to forget about.

And anyway, it’s not like Adora’s just rolling over and taking it. She tosses back her own barbs, when Catra throws tosses off something snide. She ‘accidentally’ knocked an entire tray of nacho’s back into Catra’s lap after a run-in at their old taco place last week. And someone’s been making the rounds at all the local smoke shops, passing out her picture. She’s been carded and chased away from three in the past week. Adora’s always hated her smoking, Catra wonders if she should just be infuriated at the meddling or touched on some level that she apparently cares enough to try to sabotage this particular bad habit.

“You’re _shitting_ me, dude,” Catra protests, not quite able to keep the whine out of her voice as she’s ushered toward the sidewalk. “It’s a free country, I can hang out wherever I want.”

“It’s a private parking lot, actually,” says the smoke shop guy, looking almost as annoyed as Catra feels. “So, this is loitering. And the obviously fake ID’s another charge. Just get lost before I call the cops.”

There’s just enough flat indifference in the threat for Catra to know he’d absolutely make good on it. It’s the only thing that has her complying, fighting every instinct in her body to stay and argue and make a scene out of spite. The spike of outrage and frustration is not at all helped by the serious lack of nicotine in her system for the last day and a half.

But there’s something else thrumming under her skin on the long walk back to the Academy, something sharp and urgent. Catra takes deep, scouring breaths of cold autumn air and tries to pin down the feeling, so she can take it apart, figure it out.

Why it feels this good to have her night ruined by Adora. Why it matters so much to know that she’s gotten far enough under her skin to get her to stop turning the other cheek like some fucking martyr and _swing back_ already. Why it feels like for the first time in a week she can _breathe_ and it’s all because Adora got some dick to chase her out of a parking lot.

There’s an answer, faint, echoing with every thump of her heartbeat. It’s one Catra’s not sure she likes.

She tugs the beanie down further over her head and walks faster. She wishes she had a goddamn cigarette.

x.x.x

Catra’s always had a mouth, that's nothing new.

And it’s not that Adora’s departure made things worse, exactly, but without her around Catra’s suddenly realizing just how much trouble Adora had kept her out of.

Adora had always been good at diffusing a situation, knowing just what to say at just the right time to deflect from some new challenge Catra had thrown out, or managing to cut her off before she could take things too far. And on the occasions that hadn’t been enough, her presence at Catra’s back was enough to dissuade others from conflict — everyone at the Academy knew that a fight with one of them meant a fight with both of them, and Adora had never been shy about flexing those ridiculous jacked batter’s arms of hers.

It didn’t keep them out of every scrap, but it left them few and far between, at least.

Scorpia’s just as willing to throw in on Catra’s behalf and an even better physical deterrent than Adora had been, but they’re just not together as often. And unlike Adora, Scorpia’s never really made much of an effort to interfere with even the worst of Catra’s decision-making.

The entire adjustment period has been uglier and lengthier than Catra ever would have guessed.

See, it turns out, it’s not that Catra’s just an abrasive but otherwise lovable acquired taste.

Turns out there’s a lot of people at this school who hate her fucking _guts_ , actually.

And it turns out that a lot of them don’t have all that many qualms about expressing that hatred a little more directly, now that she’s on her own.

And here’s another thing; being the best friend of the Academy’s golden girl had come with some perks she hadn’t paid much mind to before. Like maybe teachers really _do_ take it pretty serious when you stroll in a few minutes after the bell without the school’s darling sports star trailing after you. Like, maybe it pisses them off more than she’d figured before when she mouths off in class. Like, maybe there’s something to be said for never being too far from the watchful eye of a faculty member when you’re one of the school’s smallest and most openly loathed students.

Funny the things you only notice once they’re gone.

Weaver’s got a conspicuous habit of turning up just moments too late to a dust up. Always when it’s just over and she’s winded, sucking blood off her knuckles or stuffing paper towels up her nose. Just in time to scold Catra for her clumsiness or the sorry state of her uniform or her tardiness to class. Never quite there in time to break anything up. Never there to stop anything before it starts.

But it’s better this way. Honestly. It’d hardly do to get interrupted anyway, better to get chewed out over bullshit than busted for actual fighting. And she has a rep to uphold besides. Catra may be small, but she’s tough. She’s a brawler, likes the rush, can stand taking a few on the chin when she always, _always_ gives as good as she gets.

She’s always had to fight, in one way or another. It made her tough, kept her sharp. She wouldn’t trade that away for something easier, not if it cost her being strong.

The only thing is, she doesn’t expect it to follow her off-campus. Realistically, she probably should have. It fits in nicely with the theme of everything going to shit this year, all the things she thought she had a handle on spiraling out of her grasp.

It goes down like this: it’s a Saturday afternoon, about a month after the legendary Horde invasion of Bright Moon’s homecoming. The whole prank had been a big hit, momentarily skyrocketing Catra’s popularity. It feels good, to be loved, at least in this one way, and it’s thrown her off. Her guard is down.

So, really, she’s practically asking for it.

Catra’s tucked up next to the vending machines across the street from the corner store and she’s alone, scanning the customers as they pass in and out for someone who looks sketchy enough to buy her a new pack of cigarettes, since no one at any of the tobacco stores in town will accept her formlerly perfectly passable fake ID anymore.

She’s there and she’s waiting and it’s fine until it’s not. Because then there’s Octavia and a couple of her buddies and then they’re noticing each other and then Octavia’s making a beeline toward her and Catra’s kicking up off the side of the building, already shaking out her limbs.

And maybe there’s a heated exchange. Maybe Catra’s mouth runs off without her, maybe she says a few things that Adora probably wouldn’t have let her get away with. Maybe Octavia’s not as much of a fan of Catra’s epic dunk on Bright Moon as the rest of the Horde students. Or maybe she just hates Catra more than she hates their rival school. 

Whatever it is, it ends like this: Catra’s knuckles bloody, dark purple bruises blooming under all the scrapes. It ends with Octavia’s busted lip, one of her buddy’s too dizzy to walk away unaided after the way Catra pops him in the ear. It ends with Catra getting rocked _hard_ , more than once; the biggest shiner she’s sported in years, a nose too full of blood to breathe out of and one absolutely _ruined_ uniform shirt to show for it.

And, no, not even one lousy pack of cigarettes to give the whole brief, brutal exchange a sense of victory.

But it ends with Catra walking away, at least. Looking a little rougher than she’d like, but still. No one’s bitch today. No less a fighter.

She gets enough horrified looks once she starts limping home to make her seriously self-conscious. Not so much about what people might think, but reasonably paranoid someone might call the cops. And the very last thing she needs after all this is to get dropped off back at the Academy in a cruiser, with a dozen questions from Hordak and Weaver to answer.

So, she detours to the park. It’s still light out enough for the public restrooms to be open. If she’s quick and she’s lucky she can get cleaned up enough to make it the rest of the way home without running into anyone else.

She’s quick, anyway. She always is.

Lucky less often.

Lucky hardly at all, it feels like lately, because who else should stroll in not moments after she finds a sink that works but Adora?

Adora, looking like a Disney princess with her long flowing hair spilling down over her shoulders, in a grass-stained sweater with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Adora, still grinning, a little breathless with the shadow of a laugh slipping past her lips as she half jogs through the door. Adora, who recognizes her immediately, whose radiant expression immediately falls off her face at the sight of Catra, who doesn’t even hesitate to rush straight to Catra’s side.

“What happened?” Adora demands, so sincere that Catra feels _guilty_ for worrying her.

“Hey Adora,” Catra says instead of answering, pulling away when Adora reaches for her. “Forget your crown at home?”

She’s sure that if anything can get Adora to remember that they’re supposed to hate each other now, it’ll be a reminder of the very thing Catra had all too gleefully ruined for her just weeks ago. But Adora lets the stupid dig glance right off of her, still zeroed in on Catra’s busted up face like she can find all the answers to her questions somewhere in the blood caked over her busted lip. It’s all making Catra a little dizzy, overwhelmed. For the first time since she’d carved a new space for herself in Adora’s life with her nails and her teeth and a well-timed fire alarm, Catra doesn’t know what to do.

“Who did this?” Adora asks, stepping closer again but slower this time.

Catra lets her, knowing it’d be useless to fight her now. That look on Adora’s face is pure determination. That look has only ever meant she’ll find a way to get what she wants, always persistent that way, patient enough to outlast Catra in just about anything.

“I walked into a door,” Catra drawls, fighting not to wince when Adora’s thumbs gently slide along the planes of her face, tilting her head from side to side, inspecting the damage. “And another one and another one and another one—”

“Whatever,” Adora huffs, releasing Catra’s face long enough to shove a handful of paper towels under the stream of water from the sink. “See if I care.”

But her jaw’s clenched so tight Catra’s honestly worried she’s about to crack a tooth. Adora’s lack of poker face has been, at points, a weakness for Catra to gleefully exploit or an annoying quirk to cover for, but it’s never made her feel this uncomfortably culpable before. Maybe that’s why she keeps talking.

“It’s nothing,” she mutters as Adora runs a scratchy, damp paper towel over the tender skin under her eye. “You should see the other guy.”

“ _Catra_ ,” Adora chokes and Catra’s horrified to see that she’s tearing up, eyes fixed resolutely on her hands as she absently wipes the leftover dribbles of blood off Catra’s chin. 

“Hey, don’t,” Catra falters, panic and guilt sticking hard in her throat. They’ve known each other since they were _kids_ , been through some of the toughest points of their lives with only each other for support, and still in all those years Catra can count the number of times she’s seen Adora actually cry on one hand. It always leaves her feeling like this, flushed and helpless and embarrassed. She flounders, trying desperately to think of some comfort she can offer to make this all stop. “It’s not that bad. It’s really not, Adora.”

“Stop,” Adora pleads and what else can Catra do but obey when she sounds that close to losing it? “Just…”

She’s slow and thorough and almost unbearably gentle as she works. She takes her time working diligently until Catra’s cleaned up, and lingers even after that, throwing away all the wadded up paper towels lining the rim of the sink. It’s a relief to not have to look at each other for a minute, Catra feeling lost in all the silence between them.

She’s mistaken in thinking that they're done. She starts to shuffle toward the door but then Adora comes back, takes Catra’s by the wrists and guides her bloody knuckles under the faucet stream. Catra can’t quite bite back the hiss that rattles her throat at the sudden rush of cold water over her scrapes, but she manages not to tug out of Adora’s grip.

“Sorry,” Adora murmurs, sounding like she’s never meant anything more in her entire life. And if Catra's whole body throbs like one big bruise at the sound it's just because the adrenaline dump is over. That’s all it is.

“Aren’t you mad?” Catra asks finally, desperately, once the faucet’s off. Adora’s finishing up, going deliberately slow as she carefully pats the last of the blood and water off Catra’s hands. Their time is running out. Soon Adora won’t have a reason to keep her here and Catra won’t have a reason to stay and neither of them is ready to ask for more than what they absolutely need. It’s a small miracle anyway that one of Adora’s clingy new friends hasn’t barged in on them yet.

“Yeah, I’m mad,” Adora says immediately, voice sharp and brows furrowed so Catra knows she means it. Her hands stay gentle, despite it all. 

“Then why are you…?” Catra knows she must be missing something. That there’s something here she doesn’t get and she hates it enough to not even worry how vulnerable she sounds asking. She just needs to know. She just needs to understand what this is, what it means for them now.

“Because that doesn’t matter,” is all Adora says and Catra wiggles her tongue into the gap between her molars to stop from asking _why._

It’s over, she knows, when Adora finally lets her go, taking a shaky step back. Catra’s halfway to the door when Adora’s voice stops her in her tracks.

“Wait,” she blurts, looking awkward and frustrated when Catra glances over her shoulder. They never used to be like this before and it makes Catra want to sob or break something or both. “Do you want to come back with me? I’ve got, like, tylenol and…”

Catra’s almost startled into agreeing, impressed by the audacity of the request. Because Adora had to know, before she even finished forming the thought enough to ask, that Catra would put her own face through one of these dingy restroom mirrors before ever saying yes.

“I’m good, Adora,” she can’t help but laugh, startled further when Adora actually flushes red at the sound.

“Yeah, okay,” she mumbles, and Catra can’t tell if that look on her face is relief or disappointment. “But hang on a sec, you look like a slasher movie victim in that thing.”

It’s no less expected, Adora suddenly wrestling her sweater over her head, than the offer to come back to her room had been. Her shirt rides up with the turtle neck as she tugs, exposing about a hand’s width of toned midriff before falling back into place against her skin. It’s nothing Catra hasn’t already seen — they were _roommates_ , for god’s sake — but she feels herself go cold and then hot all over anyway, throat suddenly tight and dry.

Adora looks equally flushed as she shuffles forward, holding the sweater weakly out in front of her like a peace offering. Her expression is, for the first time in weeks, completely open. Unguarded.

Vulnerable.

Catra could seize on it. Dig her nails into the edge of this particular open wound and _push_. She could really do some damage. She could put Adora in her place, really keep her from ever mustering the nerve for something like this again.

Catra could make it _hurt_.

But it’s been a long day and she’s hurt enough people to be tired of it, so she shuts her mouth and takes the sweater and _goes._

Her heart, a clumsy, heavy, swollen thing thumps with bruising force against her ribcage the entire walk home.

Adora shows up at her window again that night. She doesn’t offer anything more than a quiet greeting and Catra doesn’t bother asking any questions this time, just kicks the spare blanket off the bed in invitation. She rolls to face the wall, holding herself stock still until she hears Adora settle down to sleep. She waits several long minutes after that before she lets herself roll over to look at the other girl.

It hurts less than it ever has, this time, seeing Bright Moon gold balled up under Adora’s head. She curls a fist under into her sheets, thinks about offering one of her pillows anyway, but decides against it. Adora can deal.

She falls asleep faster, this time.

Adora leaves early again, sparing them both a goodbye, though she does set three equally annoying early alarms on Catra’s phone before she goes. Catra wakes up furious, spitting curses for each of them, swearing revenge, swearing to change her passcode before the next time Adora shows back up.

It’s such an easy, casual thought, the idea of a next time. It’s the first time in months that expecting, _wanting_ something from Adora doesn’t make Catra feel like throwing up.

X.x.x

“Wait, for real?” Lonnie’s incredulous voice grates directly against Catra’s frayed nerves. “Nah, come on. I’m calling bullshit.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Catra seethes, hating the warmth creeping up the back of her neck, spilling out across her cheeks. She knows it’s not helping her case, but she can’t seem to will it away. “It just wasn’t like that. I don’t even know why you guys are so convinced—”

“Catra,” Kyle cuts in gently, twisting his hands around in his lap gently. “It’s… not that I don’t believe you. But it’s okay, y’know. It would be okay. I mean, look who you’re talking to.”

He trails off, gesturing across the table. Lonnie looks predictably smug, Scorpia flashes her an encouraging smile and thumbs up, and Rogelio is nodding enthusiastically and tucking Kyle up under his massive arm as if to prove a point. Entrapta doesn’t even look up from the tablet she’s fiddling with, but really, it’d be weirder if she did.

“I _know_ that,” Catra grits out, tapping out an anxious rhythm on the table top with her nails. “That’s why you should believe me. It just wasn’t like that with us. We were only roommates. Best friends.”

“You _really_ expect us to believe that you and Adora weren’t dating?” Lonnie presses.

“Yes!” Catra shouts, ducking her head embarassed when she realizes her theatrics have attracted the attention of other tables. She lowers her voice, continuing, “How’d you even get that impression in the first place?”

“How could we _not_?” Lonnie scoffs. “You went, like, _everywhere_ together. You hardly hung out with anyone else and when you _did_ it was a constant struggle to keep enough of your attention to stop you from slipping off into your own little world together.”

“We didn’t go _everywhere_ together—”

“Oh yeah? Okay. How many of her games did you miss?”

“A bunch.”

“Hardly _any_ ,” Lonnie counters. “And you _hate_ sports.”

“I just liked to watch her pulverize the other teams!”

“ _That_ much investment in watching your hot best friend do sports crimes to other softball teams isn’t exactly a convincing point in the straight column, Catra.”

“I never said I was straight, just that we weren’t together,” Catra protests, feeling her palms start to sweat. 

“You guys had, like, _zero_ concept of personal space,” Lonnie continues, grinning. “We actually had a bet on whether you guys even had two beds in that room at all.”

They’d all seen her when she’d moved the second bed out of the room the day after Adora left. They hadn’t known the bed she’d gotten rid of had been her own, at one point. She certainly wouldn’t tell them _now_ that they would have been right in assuming it was hardly ever used.

“We were just friends,” is all Catra can say, embarassed by how weak her voice comes out.

Lonnie pauses at the shift in Catra’s tone, chewing her lip for a long moment before sighing and leaning back. Weirdly, the clear sign of surrender almost makes Catra feel more pathetic than the teasing had. “Whatever. Can’t blame us for assuming, though. You guys just had a vibe.”

“We did _not_ have a vibe,” Catra says, feeling hollow in the pit of her stomach.

“Sorry,” Scorpia finally chimes in, smiling apologetically. “But you totally did have a vibe.”

Catra levels a weak glare in her direction and shovels a cold mouthful of mac and cheese into her mouth.

“But I totally believe you!” Scorpia rushes to assure her. “Completely platonic. I get that now.”

“It’s just that everyone figured you got dumped when she left, and that’s why you had your little meltdown.” Rogelio chimes in for the first time and, yeah, Catra likes him better when he keeps his stupid mouth shut.

Because what can she even say to that? How can she even begin to describe how it hurt, how it felt like losing a limb, how the sound of Adora zipping her suitcase on that last day had seared every raw nerve in her body? How could she explain that there are more ways to be hurt by someone than fit into a neat box like a breakup, or an ended friendship or a school transfer? What could she say to get them to understand how the promise of forever broke and splintered between them, sinking like shrapnel into those soft spaces in her body that only Adora even had access to?

How could she explain what that _felt like?_ How it still feels?

How could she explain that she wakes up every day in an empty bed and hurts all over again, just for a second, even months later? How could she look them in the eye and say that this shaky, weak new rivalry between them, this constantly shifting, fluctuating dynamic was just a pathetic attempt to have Adora in some new way? How could she admit that every petty, stupid, cruel thing she’d done had been done in anger and hurt and a desperate need to be paid attention to _somehow_?

How could she say that they never needed to be dating for Adora to break her heart?

“Yeah, well, you were wrong,” Catra mutters, after the silence has stretched too painfully long. She takes another methodical bite of the cold, greasy cafeteria food. Chews and swallows mechanically, mind racing desperately to find a way to turn the topic to something else.

“Did you guys see the video of that Bright Moon kid that set their Thanksgiving float on fire?” Entrapta pipes up from across the table, angling her tablet to face them and tapping its screen to play the video.

“Wait, _that_ guy’s from Bright Moon?” Scorpia asks. “He set that tablecloth on fire at the dance. I thought he was one of ours.”

Catra lets loose a long, slow breath, feeling some of the tension of the last miserable half hour slowly uncoil from her spine. She slouches gratefully at her seat, half-heartedly watching the video with the others.

A gentle pressure on her foot draws her attention away. Cautiously, she glances up, catches Scorpia watching her, expression soft and supportive, mouth quirked at the corner in that easy little half-smile that always seems to say _I’ve got your back._

Somehow, despite everything, it’s an easy expression to mirror.

The rest of the lunch hour is mercifully dull. Catra clears her plate. She joins in when the others resume shit talking a different group. She steals cold, limp french fries off Kyle’s half-eaten plate, just for something to do with her hands.

She hardly even thinks of Adora at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://explosionshark.tumblr.com) is dying, come hang out with me there anyway


	3. Think I'm Still In Love With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not dead and neither is this fic! s/o to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) and amy for reading this over. s/o to [arys](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins) for letting me write a fic inspired by their art!
> 
> fic title from the song by mansions. chapter title from the song by joyce manor

The text came in half an hour ago. DO NOT ANSWER, still, because anything else would feel too much like rolling over, like _asking_ to get trampled all over and, worse, deserving it.

_U awake?_

Catra saw the notification. Contemplated it flat on her back, on her bed, half dread and half anticipation swirling in her belly. She and Adora don’t text. They never really have. Before this year, they were together often enough for relying on their phones to communicate to be the exception, not the rule. And funnily enough, all that being betrayed and abandoned by her best friend business didn’t exactly make Catra particularly chatty.

She raps her fingertips against the bare skin of her belly from where her shirt has rucked up and waits five minutes before opening the text. She doesn’t bother to reply — her read receipts have been on since Adora decided to leave and Catra decided to make it clear that her texts were being received but ignored.

It’s past noon, anyway. Adora should know better than to ask stupid questions. Maybe Catra’s not waking up at the ass crack of dawn like an _idiot_ to watch Adora do laps around the Academy track, but that doesn’t mean she’s sleeping entire Saturdays away.

Besides, Catra knows ‘are you awake?’ isn’t ever the question anyone _means_ to ask. It’s a prelude, a lead in to the thing they really want. And Catra’s exhausted from barely sleeping, stress headache building from the pile of unfinished assignments she can’t seem to bring herself to start working on, skull still buzzing with something anxious and claustrophobic, left over from that weird, miserable conversation with her friends in the caf last week. She's not sure she wants to find out the question behind Adora's question.

God, what a head fuck.

Catra brings her hands up to her face, digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. The swelling’s gone away, the deep purple of the shiner faded to a sickly yellow but it’s still tender, still sensitive. Still aches in that too satisfying way that has her flinching and then pushing harder, _harder_.

It shouldn’t still be in her head like this. It shouldn’t be messing with her this badly.

So, her friends were idiots and they misread the situation.

It should be that simple.

Only it’s not. Only, she’s spent the last week picking at the scabs on her knuckles and obsessing over every moment she and Adora had ever spent together. She’s never done it before, actually; never examined Adora’s role in her life.

Up until this year, she’s never had to.

Adora’s just been _there_ — a constant, a fixture, an anchor, ever since they were kids. It had been the two of them for as long as she cared to remember. They’d found each other early, they’d been lucky for it, they’d made that stupid, naive promise of forever and spent the next decade honoring it without a second thought. Of course Catra had never devoted much time to thinking about their friendship. She hadn’t ever really spared a thought to her relationship with her right arm either.

But now she can’t stop. She thinks about curling up at Adora’s side at night, the sound of her heartbeat carrying Catra off to sleep. She thinks about the way Adora’s eyes would crinkle at the sides when she laughed and meant it (and with Catra, she _always_ meant it). She thinks about when Adora threw out her shoulder that time, how Catra’s own breath had caught in her throat when she’d held the ice pack to Adora’s bare skin and she’d _hissed_ and arched and how the memory still, _now_ , leaves Catra achy and anxious and wanting for something that feels more and more like—

_Like—_

_Fuck_ , she can’t go there.

But she closes her eyes and digs her palms into her eyelids and Adora’s face is still there, amidst the explosions of colors in the dark and the heady rush of pain.

 _You_ really _expect us to believe you and Adora weren’t dating?_

They _hadn’t_ been, really. Last week, saying so, she’d been so desperate to be believed. Now the same thought rolls through her head and leaves her hollow.

She wonders if Adora’s friends had ever assumed the same. She wonders if Adora’s thought about it too, if she misses Catra close to her in the same way. She wonders if the memories of them together carried the same bitter aftertaste for her now that she knows, can’t stop thinking about, the fact that it could have, might have been more.

Or maybe Adora doesn’t think of it at all. Maybe she’d lose her mind laughing if anyone asked.

Catra’s not sure what’s worse.

Abruptly, she cuts off that train of thought. She forces herself out of bed, shuffles her way to the dresser and digs out a towel and change of clothes.

The shower’s brief and mercifully warm — late enough in the day for the hot water to have come back. The steam clears her head, and the sensation of being clean leaving her lighter when she makes her way back to her room.

At least until she lets herself back into her room and finds Adora sprawled on her bed.

She shoots up at the sound of the door opening, takes a look at Catra’s tank top and sweats, the wet hair clinging to her neck and shoulders, and her jaw slides open, cheeks flaming, won’t _fucking look away_.

“The _hell_ are you doing here?” Catra demands, louder than she intends, startled. She winces and kicks the door shut, fumbling to flick the lock shut behind her without looking.

“You, uh, you were up, so,” Adora trails off, still staring, still bright red and this is already weird enough without her acting like a complete _freak_.

Catra sucks in a breath, about to tell her off, and then glances down, realizes, yeah, she hadn’t bothered to put a bra on after her shower. Because she expected, like an idiot, apparently, that her room wouldn’t be spontaneously broken into by the girl who’d been her best friend for ten years who she might have actually been kind of in love with except she didn’t know it because _yeah_. She _is_ an idiot.

“Get _out_ ,” Catra sputters, pulling her balled up bundle of pajamas and wet towels up over her chest, as heat rushes to her own face.

Adora startles and nods, a little dazed, rising off the bed and making it halfway back to the window before catching herself and stopping. “No, wait, Catra, come on—”

This is going to be an argument.

And she’ll have it. Frankly, she thinks she might need it, something that could disperse the tension that's been swimming up her spine all week. But first she needs a minute.

Just a minute to catch her breath and _think_ and change her goddamn shirt.

“Okay, fuck, just— shut up a minute,” she grumbles.

“Alright. Yeah,” Adora breathes, the palpable relief in her voice tying Catra’s stomach into knots.

At least she stays facing away.

Small mercies.

Catra waits a beat, letting a long slow breath of air escape her lungs, and forces the tension out of her shoulders. This is _her_ room now. Not theirs. _Her_ space and she can’t, _won’t_ let Adora put her on her heels here.

She steps up to her dresser, putting her back to Adora and fishing through the drawers for a bra. When she whips the tank top over her head she hears — not quite a gasp, but something close. This sharp intake of breath, like Adora just caught an elbow under the ribs and Catra remembers a beat too late the mirror hanging opposite her.

She thinks of Adora’s eyes on her chest earlier, imagines she can feel them burning holes into the bare skin of her back and feels herself begin to flush again. But she doesn’t rush, just swallows and goes about dressing with a calm she doesn’t feel, keeping her fingers from shaking as she clasps the bra behind her back through sheer force of will. She takes a deliberately long time picking out a different shirt, because as much as her head is spinning, the sensation of being watched, of having Adora’s complete attention in this moment, is something like power and after a week of feeling helpless and frustrated and confused she’s starving for it.

She slides the sweats down her hips after a moment's hesitation. Hears that sound again but slower, longer, like a kickball deflating and fights the urge to look over her shoulder. She wonders if Adora’s still watching through the mirror, if she’s averted her eyes in embarrassment, or if she’s turned around to stare more directly.

Any of them feels like a win.

She yanks a pair of jeans up her legs and turns on her heel as she does up the buttons, just in time to catch Adora’s eyes shifting rapidly away in the mirror.

Catra doesn’t bother to hide her smirk.

“So, explain which part of me not answering your stupid text means ‘hey, Adora, come on over?’”

Adora at least has the good grace to wince. “None of it. But I thought— I mean. I missed you.”

She trails off with this sheepish little shrug, this smile twisting the corner of her mouth, cheeks still dusted pink and it lands heavy in Catra’s gut.

Because she can still, _still_ say these things like it’s no big deal. Like they’re just friends, the same as they ever were, and they can spend time together like friends do.

She says it like it’s such a passive thing, to miss someone. Like she’s not _missing_ Catra because _she_ decided to _leave_.

_It’s just that everyone figured you got dumped when she left, and that’s why you had your little meltdown._

The hurt ebbs into anger, tinged at the edges with something like embarrassment as a fresh wave of heat shoots through Catra. Because it’s bad enough that everyone thinks that Catra’s friendship was easy enough to walk away from. But for all of them to think that Catra and Adora were together _like that_ and Adora could still walk away at the first chance at something better sets her _burning._

And then what would this look like? Adora hanging around, sneaking in through the window. Bad enough at night but here _now_ on the weekend, during the day, where anyone could see.

Anyone could see how weak Catra was, how desperate, how stupid, to let a girl like this back into her life.

“You can’t just _show up_ here whenever you want to, Adora,” Catra bites out, suddenly frantic. “Like, who _does_ that?”

“Whoa, okay,” Adora says, alarmed. She blinks, reaches a calming hand out towards Catra as she steps closer. “Um. My bad. I just thought—”

“I don’t care what you thought,” Catra snaps. “What if someone else saw you? What would _they_ think?”

Adora pauses, contrite expression melting into something baffled and irritated. “What do you mean? Who _cares_ what they think?”

“ _Me._ Obviously.”

“Since when?”

“Since you took off and left me here by myself and I found out that everyone— _everyone_ thought that—”

Catra’s jaw snaps shut as her brain catches up to her mouth, just moments short of making this awful, painful, embarrassing mess that much worse.

For all her idle wondering earlier, Catra knows this can’t be something they talk about now. Not ever. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. Whether Adora felt it too and left anyway, whether she figured it out after the way Catra did, whether she’d find the whole thing absurd, laughable, disgusting—

 _None_ of it would be good.

“Everyone thought what?” Adora asks, frustrated, when Catra doesn’t continue. 

“Just go, Adora,” Catra says, lacing the words with as much ice as she can and hoping it’s enough.

Adora doesn’t, because that would be too simple. Catra hadn’t really expected that to work, but she figured Adora would lose her patience, snap something back. Adora slowing down, gnawing her lip, inching closer, reaching out, voice low and soft, is the last thing Catra wanted. “What do they think, Catra?”

The way Adora’s looking at her sucks all the air out of the room. She digs and digs for something cutting, deflective, but can barely find enough air to breathe steady under that gentle, searching gaze.

“Have people here been giving you a hard time?” She asks, still so soft. She reaches up slow, drags the tips of her fingers so lightly across the edge of the bruise under Catra’s eye. “Is someone messing with you?”

It’s like a blow to the side of the head, this terrible, earnest obliviousness. The worst possible joke at the worst possible time, so ugly and out of place Catra can’t help the short, harsh bark of laughter that flies out of her throat.

“ _Yeah_ ,” she finds herself admitting, too shocked at Adora’s cluelessness to care. “Yeah, of course they have been. What did you think would happen? People here don’t _like_ me, Adora.”

Adora blinks, looking hurt and lost and still so confused it makes Catra’s head spin. “That’s not true. Everyone was always super cool to us.”

“To _you_.” Catra cuts her off. “Your friends, Adora. Not mine. There’s like _four_ people here who can stand me at all.”

Adora looks pained, suddenly, out of her depth. “I’m sure you— No. Who did this? Who’s doing this? Tell me, we’ll go find them, we can settle this. Whatever it is, we can fix this.”

There’s that set in her shoulders, that gleam in her eyes, that _seriousness_ and Catra knows she _means_ it. And maybe in Adora’s world it’s true, every problem can be fixed, every conflict resolved, eventually, somehow, if you want it enough.

Catra suddenly feels unmoored, adrift. Farther away from Adora than she has in _months_ , maybe, somehow. 

Tired. Hopeless more than angry.

“How are we going to settle this?” Catra barely manages to keep her voice from breaking. Her throat feels tight and Adora won’t stop _looking_ at her, eyes so big, eyebrows dipped low, pretty pink lips twisted in an expression of such naked _concern_ it feels like it’s choking her. “You don’t go here. You’re not part of my life. You don’t get a say.”

Adora’s face shifts, expression more pinched and when she speaks there’s a sharp, frustrated edge to her voice. “Of course I get a say if people are picking on my…”

“Your what? Your _best friend?_ ” Catra asks, and there’s a sharpness to that phrase now that that cuts her mouth. It brings the anger back, swallowing her frailty. Catra bites her lip, breathes out hard through her nose, and clings to it like a lifeline. “Newsflash, Adora. You don’t have one of those anymore. Not here. Not for months. And that was _your_ call, _not_ mine. So you don’t get to show up and stir shit up for me whenever you _feel_ like it. You don’t get to act like it’s such a bummer for you that I’m miserable here. I’m not your _best friend_. Go home, Adora.”

“I—”

“ _Go_ ,” Catra growls, embarrassed when she feels tears spring to her eyes but too grateful to dwell on it because at least it gets Adora to finally listen.

She goes.

Catra locks the window behind her.

X.x.x

Her weekend’s wrecked, basically.

Catra spends the rest of Saturday feeling restless, stung. The pressure inside swells and swells, throbbing at her temples, making her skin feel too tight.

Scorpia drops by late in the evening with a slice of cold pizza, a not so subtle attempt to check on her, and Catra bites her head off.

Scorpia takes it in stride, like she usually does. It makes Catra feel worse, angry at Adora for affecting her this way, even angrier at herself for _being_ so affected.

Catra eats the pizza alone and feels miserable and waits for something to change. Nothing does, except the guilt settling over her gets stuck in her throat. She leaves out the window, sneaks off campus through the hole in the fence near the tennis courts.

She walks. She doesn’t think about where or why, just tries to clear her head, stay mechanical. One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of the other.

Of course she ends up at Bright Moon. That’s just the kind of week she’s been having.

It’s cold and she didn’t dress to be outside. Catra holds tight to the wrought iron bars of Bright Moon’s giant gate until her hands go numb. She breathes out puffs of steam and stares at the buildings in the distance. Thinks, insanely, of clambering over the fence, of letting herself into Adora’s room. See how she likes it.

It’s a notion she doesn’t entertain long because A) she doesn’t even know which building is Adora’s new dorm, let alone what room she’s in and B) even in her consequence-free fantasy she doesn’t know what she would _do._

Her stomach’s still twisted with rage and guilt and she’s buzzing with pent-up energy. She wants to break something nice. She thinks of the look on Adora’s face at the dance, when Catra ruined her big stupid night and thinks she’d like to put it back there again. Imagines ripping the trophies and the ribbons down off Adora’s walls. Imagines setting that stupid, ugly Bright Moon letterman on fire, dancing around the flames.

There’s less joy in the thought than she’d hoped for, so she tries again.

She could lay into Adora. Just let her have it, unleash all the hurt and grief that’s been making her sick this year. Tell her what a bad friend she is, explain in excruciating detail all the ways Adora has hurt her, show her how deep those scars run. Strip the veneer of good intentions away until Adora has to really _look_ at what she’s done, has to acknowledge it, has to _know_ how fucked up it is without making excuses.

This one feels a little better, but the flash of lights from a security cart breaks Catra out of it and she remembers that Bright Moon has the kind of security that the Academy can’t afford. Briefly, she wonders how Adora’s been managing to slip them so regularly, why she’d bother to take the risk just to sleep on Catra’s hard floor and not talk to her.

Shakily, Catra tears herself away from the gate and trudges off into the night, as if she could leave the thought physically behind.

X.x.x

Catra makes it home just before dawn, sprawls out on top of her covers and drags herself bodily into sleep. 

She doesn’t dream. 

It’s a relief.

A thump from the next room wakes her just a few hours later and despite the leaden drag of her limbs, she can’t make herself relax enough to fall back to sleep.

So she gets up.

Scorpia’s in the common room, chatting with a few students Catra can’t remember the names of. She excuses herself and trots over once Catra catches her eye.

“Hey,” she says easily, like Catra hadn’t thrown a tantrum in front of her just last night. “You hungry?”

Catra feels more sick than hungry but she says yes and braces herself for a trip to the cafeteria. Mercifully, Scorpia surprises her by leading them to an off campus diner instead.

Scorpia buys her pancakes and chatters absently through their meal and doesn’t ask any of the questions Catra expects she wants to. By the time she clears her plate, she feels more like a person, and the pounding pressure she’d woken up with behind her eyes has faded.

After, on the sidewalk, in the sun, Scorpia asks if she wants to go back to the dorms or if she wants to go tag bathroom stalls at the mall. It’s the first easy choice she’s had in what feels like ages and she’s grateful.

It helps, being out of her room, out of her head a little. The mall is predictably busy for a weekend, but for once Catra welcomes the distraction of a crowd. They wander aimlessly for an hour. Scorpia laughs at every hilarious, mean thing she mutters about a passerby, without even attempting the disappointed sighs that her humor would have elicited from Adora. She nicks a phone charger off one of those dumb little kiosks outside a sporting good store, because the one she has at home is starting to fray. She fishes change out of a fountain and feeds it into a massage chair outside of the movie theater. Scorpia buys her an Orange Julius from the food court and her heart is finally, finally lighter.

She artfully defaces three bathroom stalls, tension sloughing off her body with each drag of her wrist, the squeak of felt on plastic. She’s working on number four when the door to the restrooms opens. She tucks herself into the stall, yanks the door shut and slides the lock in place and waits.

It’s not security, that much is apparent when a familiar voice filters through to Catra’s stall.

“Here I sit, broken-hearted,” Glimmer reads aloud, and Catra doesn’t have to see her face to know her eyebrows are pinched tight in distaste. “Came to—”

Her voice chokes off into an scandalized gasp and Catra can’t help it. She laughs.

“Who’s in here?” Glimmer demands. “Did you do this?”

It’s too fucking rich.

Catra cackles again and exits the stall, shoving the pen into her back pocket on her way out, without bothering to pause and address Glimmer’s outraged sputtering.

Outside, a lazily grinning Scorpia and a glowering Adora are staring each other down in front of the fountain while an anxious looking Bow gazes on.

Catra whistles once, sharp, and practically _preens_ at how quickly everyone’s attention snaps to her. The glare melts off Adora’s face, expression shifting to something hesitant, almost timid. Scorpia’s easy smile brightens with genuine warmth. Bow continues to look vaguely sick, which is kind of an ideal reaction to invoke in a Bright Moon kid.

“Hey, Adora,” she says, stalking over. And then, just to be a dick, “Joe.”

He looks offended but before he can offer some tepid objection, Adora’s darting forward, reaching for her. “Catra.”

Distantly, she registers Glimmer exiting the restrooms. Catra wonders how many times they’ll end up here, playing out some private, painful drama in front of Adora’s clueless friends. Scorpia’s watching her carefully, ready to follow Catra’s lead.

“Hey,” Glimmer bites out. “I saw what you wrote in there about Bright Moon. What is wrong with you? Why do you hate us so much? Go clean it up.”

Honestly, her head feels like a snow globe after a good hard shake, too much fluttering and floating around for her to even remember exactly which disparaging thing she’d scrawled on a bathroom stall for kicks five minutes ago.

“Bite me, Glitter,” Catra snaps anyway, whirling around to fix her with her most withering glare.

Catra expects to be met with the kind of affronted, toothless sniveling the typical Etheria Heights rich kids are always reduced to around her. She’s actually a little impressed when Glimmer just squares her shoulders, steps closer with a glare of her own.

“You know my name,” she hisses. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Catra says, hands curling into fists at her sides. She can feel that familiar buzzing from last night, tension coiling under her skin, a storm brewing in the ropy chords of her muscles. It’s almost a relief, the inevitability of violence. A language she’s fluent in, a space she knows how to navigate.

“You can’t—” Glimmer starts, but she’s interrupted by Adora sliding in between them, wrapping a hand around Catra’s bicep.

“Catra, chill,” Adora’s grip is firm, her voice is low and serious and Catra _hates_ it.

“Why should _I_ chill?” Catra demands, ripping out of Adora’s grip. It takes two tries, leaves her feeling bruised and sore, but it’s worth it to be free. “ _She’s_ the one who started getting all aggro on my ass.”

It’s just instinct that yanks her forward, taking a menacing step towards Glimmer. It had been a nice afternoon until she showed up and ruined it. Until she’d decided it was her place to tell Catra what to do, to turn Catra’s friends against her, to—

Adora’s all broad shoulders, firm lean muscle. Catra actually stumbles when she slams into her, blocked again from reaching Glimmer. Adora’s palm on Catra’s shoulder steadies her and holds her at bay. “Don’t.”

The word hits harder than any blow she’s ever been dealt. A year ago it would have been Adora standing in front of Catra. Or Adora at her shoulder, backing her up. Tears sting her eyes for a brief horrible moment and she can’t, _won’t_ cry in front of these people.

“Of course,” Catra says, forcing a bitter laugh into her voice. “Of course you pick her.”

Adora’s eyes widen and she squeezes the hand on Catra’s shoulder tighter. “No, that’s not—”

“Get off me,” Catra sneers, pulling away again and shoving Adora back. She puts her weight into it, compounded by the sharp sting of humiliation. Adora’s not expecting it, stumbling backwards, almost losing her balance for one breathless moment.

She manages not to fall, steadied by Glimmer’s hand at her back. “Whoa, hey.”

That stupid wounded look on Adora’s face is gone, replaced by genuine annoyance. It’s a relief to see her so pissed off, finally losing composure. Not so high and mighty now. Not so above it all. Not so much better than Catra and her pain and her anger.

Catra’s not sure what Adora’s planning to do with that look on her face and all the rage behind it, but when Adora makes a desperate grab towards her, Scorpia’s suddenly there, yanking Adora back by the collar of her jacket.

Adora reacts without thinking, pulling herself free and shoving Scorpia away, hard enough to send her stumbling into bench. Adora’s got her hands fisted tight in the material of Scorpia’s coat, leaning in threateningly.

“Hey, get your hands off her,” Catra shouts, pulling Adora off. They lose their balance, both stumbling and struggling, shoving and pushing and pulling and it’s _fast_ , it’s thoughtless. Before she even knows what’s happening really they’re weightless, just for a moment, and then they’re soaked through and sputtering and aching.

They landed in the fountain. Adora’s on top of her, and her head is underwater just for a moment before Adora yanks her up. She’s sputtering and Adora looks shocked and Catra doesn’t even think, just flips them around.

Adora curses when her elbow bangs into the concrete of the fountain. Sputters and splashes and tries to buck Catra off, but Catra digs her knees into the sides of Adora’s hips, rides out the motion of her frantic jerking. She digs her heels into the lip of the fountain for leverage and twists her hands in the fabric of Adora’s jacket and _pushes_. Not enough to put her head underwater, but to press her body down into the bottom of the fountain, to pin her there.

Adora bucks up again and gets nowhere, Catra’s position too strong to be so easily unseated. She grits her teeth, cheeks pink with exertion, glaring up at Catra like she could actually hate her. It feels good. It feels _great_.

Catra sneers and twists her grip tighter for good measure, bearing down with more of her weight to show Adora just how helpless she is under her.

The hateful look on Adora’s face evaporates. Her cheeks get impossibly pinker, pupils almost eclipsing the bright blue of her eyes, chest heaving under Catra’s hands. And it takes a second, just a second too long, for Catra to catch up.

To really register the hard press of Adora’s body under her, the pounding in her own chest, the way she _burns_ at every point of contact. Adora’s hips under hers are finally still, her struggling faded into something charged and surprisingly, shockingly pliant. Her face is open, vulnerable, _wanting_.

It sucks all the air out of Catra’s lungs.

Adora’s fists in the water above her head uncurl slowly, and Catra can feel the long, slow breath of air she pushes out of lungs like it was being pulled directly into Catra’s body instead.

And then Scorpia’s yelling, “Security!” and scooping Catra up out of the fountain with hands under her arms. They’re running before Catra’s even sure of what’s going on, dragged along by Scorpia’s grip on her arm. It keeps her upright, even as her wet shoes slip and slide on the tile.

They manage to make it out of the mall without being caught, cutting through a candle store and knocking over an expensive looking display on the way. They don’t stop running once they hit the parking lot, or the sidewalk, or even the next block.

When they finally do slow down it hurts to breathe and Catra feels like her heart could pound right out of her chest.


	4. Slow Come On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go again! big thanks again to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) and amy for reading this over. s/o to [arys](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins) for letting me write a fic inspired by their art!
> 
> fic title from the song by mansions. chapter title from the song by tigers jaw
> 
> cw for referenced (past) child abuse and underage drinking

All that harsh, prickly tension buzzing under Catra’s skin fizzles out over the course of the week. What’s left over is flat and syrupy, leaves her feeling tame and toothless. She sticks close to campus all week, which is kind of miserable and pathetic, but allows her to catch up on a mountain of work out of sheer boredom.

Adora sends a single text, a terrifying ‘can we talk?’ but she doesn’t try to sneak into Catra’s dorm room again when Catra doesn’t reply, so that’s something. Character growth, maybe.

It’s kind of a relief, really, to feel like she has a moment to breathe without wondering when Adora will drop by to blow everything up. It feels a bit like cowardice but Catra finds she’s surprisingly okay with that. Shame has long since settled into Catra like a particularly tough hangnail — it bleeds and it tugs when it catches something rough, but for the most part it’s a dull, docile kind of pain, so familiar she barely thinks twice about it.

It’s only temporary. She’s just got to take a minute, get her head right and then she’ll do… something.

Catra hasn’t really thought far enough ahead to figure out _what_ exactly this situation needs, mostly because when she thinks about her life and her relationship with Adora for more than five minutes at a time she winds up with a splitting headache. 

This avoidance, this lack of confrontation isn’t natural or particularly comfortable, but Catra’s _tried_ the other thing. She’s lashed out, made herself a nuisance, gotten up in Adora’s face. And she can’t do it again, not like this, because something changed last weekend.

It feels like a camera zooming out, a blurry background now swimming with vital detail.

Detail like Adora risking that cushy Bright Moon scholarship time and again to sleep on her floor. Details like a slow dance that ended a little too soon, like a borrowed sweater stuffed in the corner of her closet, like Adora’s fists uncurling underwater, body going lax while her eyes, _her eyes—_

Even if Adora hadn’t been a terrible liar, those eyes would have given her away. And the more Catra thinks about it, the more she realizes that look wasn’t entirely new. She just hadn’t noticed it before. She hadn’t been looking.

It’s kind of all she’s been able to think about this week, when she lets her brain slow down long enough to wander.

Adora wants her. 

There’s not really any point in denying it, now. She’s sure of it.

She just has no idea what it _means._

Adora _left_. Adora kept coming back. Adora got new friends, a new life. Adora won’t give up. Adora promised. Adora broke her promise.

Adora wants her.

But how? And how much? And—

Right on cue, her temples start to throb. Catra groans, burying her head in her arms and rubbing her face into the fabric of her sleeves. She forces her mind blank, focusing just on taking deep, regular breaths.

Something bumps her elbow and she looks up to see Entrapta, gaze fixed at some point over Catra’s shoulder, sliding a granola bar to her across the table. “What?”

“You’ve been doing that a lot,” Entrapta says matter-of-factly. She pauses, takes a quick glance down at her phone screen before nodding. “Did you know some people get headaches from low blood sugar? Eat that.”

Catra opens her mouth to ask where the _hell_ Entrapta gets off telling her what to do, before she realizes that what’s happening is nice, actually. And she hasn’t eaten since the banana and oatmeal she’d choked down for breakfast, so she complies, struggling with the wrapper for a moment too long before she finally gets the bar open.

“You should lay off the smoking, while you’re at it,” Entrapta continues, frowning as she scrolls further. “And caffeine. Apparently those are triggers.”

“Trust me,” Catra says, slowly chewing a dry, crumbly mouthful of granola. “The last thing anyone here needs is me without cigarettes or coffee.”

Entrapta hums disapprovingly, but doesn’t argue further. “You should drink more water. And tea, but the herbal kind.”

“Do I _look_ like the kind of person that drinks _tea_?”

“Wait, now apparently caffeine is good,” Entrapta says, fingers tapping furiously at her phone’s screen. “I need more sources, hang on a minute.”

“Y’know, it’s probably fine, Entrapta,” Catra sighs, rubbing a knuckle into her forehead.

“I just sent Scorpia a link to some massage techniques that help, apparently,” Entrapta says again after a few minutes of silence. “So, expect her to drop by later.”

“You wha—”

“Acupuncture. Hmm. How do you feel about needles?”

“In my _head?_ No fucking thanks.”

“Interesting,” Entrapta says, nodding seriously. “But in other places, you’re fine.”

“ _No_ ,” Catra says, slapping her hands onto the table hard enough to hurt. “ _No needles_.”

Entrapta watches her carefully for a moment. “You know, stress is also a big contributor to headaches. You might want to try relaxing.”

“I—” Catra starts, a hot flash of anger roaring up from the bottom of her gut. But there’s no mocking anywhere in Entrapta’s voice. There’s still gritty remnants of granola stuck to backs of Catra’s teeth. Her whole body’s taut like a wire and she forces herself to bleed the tension out of her muscles. Maybe Entrapta’s got a point. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Entrapta nods, apparently satisfied. “Want another granola bar?”

“No thanks,” Catra laughs. Entrapta's answering frown is so severe it's almost a pout, and Catra feels a pang of guilt and something warmer, like gratitude. “Actually, sure. As long as you’ll split it with me.”

Entrapta considers it a moment before reaching into her bag for another bar. She breaks it in half and passes the bigger piece over to Catra.

“Thanks,” Catra says, quiet, but the word feels too small for what she means. There’s this ache in the center of her chest, warm and dull. It sucks less, to agonize over bullshit like this, when someone else is there to notice, to want to do something about it.

“Not a problem,” Entrapta says with a light shrug, like to her it’s really not.

X.x.x

Entrapta’s not the only one to notice Catra’s off her game.

“You need to unwind,” says Lonnie, a paragon of chill apparently, despite being the only one of their group to ever rip the head off a rival school's mascot mid-game to the horrified cries of an entire visiting third grade class. 

“I do not,” Catra huffs and graciously does not bring up the mascot incident.

“You’re crushing your science assignment to death with your bare hands.”

Catra blinks, looks down at the stupid plastic model she'd spent an hour gluing together last night to see she’s right and it’s warped, twisted out of shape. _Fuck_. “I just do that. That’s my thing. I hate molecules.”

“You hate… molecules?” Rogelio asks.

“ _Yeah_ , I _do_ , Rogelio,” Catra snaps. One of the model’s rods snaps in half in her hands. Fuck _. Fuck._ “If you hate _anything_ , you hate molecules by default since they’re _in_ everything _._ Idiot.”

Scorpia tilts her head, glancing thoughtfully at the destroyed assignment. “I guess she has a point.”

Lonnie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, anyway, you’re coming to this party whether you like it or not.”

“Like hell,” Catra spits. And then, since it’s ruined anyway and Catra’s nothing if not an opportunist, she breaks the model the rest of the way apart in her hands.

Point made.

End of story.

x.x.x

The party’s not so bad, actually.

The old quarry’s probably the only place where Catra’s even less likely to run into Adora than the Academy tonight. 

It’s far enough outside of town and inconvenient enough to get to to keep the police at bay, which makes it the preferred party spot of Etheria’s finest burnouts and deadbeats. It’s been abandoned about eleven years, but Catra has faint memories of visiting on a field trip as a kid, when it was still being preserved as a historical site.

She remembers an endless summer day, boiling sun pounding down on them, Adora’s sweaty hand tight in hers as their teacher lead the class after a stooped old man in coveralls. He talked about the granite mines the town had boomed around, the thousands of tons of rock they carved out of it once, the slow decline of the industry, and the freak flood that had damned the whole place. She remembers when he talked about the jobs lost and the families displaced, how it all happened the year she’d been born. The notion that her family must have been among the affected was more or less unfounded, but an idea Catra had never been able to shake.

It’d be weirdly fitting, if it were true. The same thing Weaver and everyone else had ever told her; born a loser. Catra’s arrival just another devastating blow to a family already buckling under years of rotten luck, but at least one they could opt out of. Floods, layoffs, and foreclosures are burdens that can’t be shrugged off. But unwanted kids? A different story entirely.

When she’d asked their tour guide if he’d known her parents, if they’d worked at the quarry and left town with everyone else, he’d only stammered and changed the subject. Her teacher had been mad, pulled her aside from the group while everyone stared and berated her in that sharp, quiet voice that grown-ups always talked to her in. Catra had wilted, small and sour and dried up in the sun, and not even Adora’s friendliest smiles or the fruit roll up she’d offered Catra when they’d stopped for lunch had been enough to quell the churning in her stomach.

Catra knocks back the rest of a can of beer before winding back and hurling it off the side of a cliff and listens and listens and listens for it to hit the water, but never hears the splash.

She likes the place much better now, a decade condemned, no teachers, no tour guides, no sunshine in sight.

No Adora, either, but it’s fine.

She’d always seemed to hate the place, never really relaxed here. As social as she was, parties never quite appeared to suit her. Adora didn’t really drink, she barely tolerated Catra smoking at all. The only thing she’d ever seemed to enjoy at these things had been dancing. But she’d always come anyway, dutifully accompanying Catra, and had never complained.

Catra never really thought twice about it before. It had just seemed fair. Catra went to Adora’s dumb sports events, and Adora went along to the parties and it had just been fair.

She can’t help but think about Adora’s new friends. She wonders what they compromise on, what they give up for each other. Maybe it’s food. Maybe they gag and cringe when Adora buys a jumbo drink and fills it up to the brim with every flavor at the soda fountain. Maybe they’re into board games, the kind of long, boring, rules-laden affairs that Adora never had the patience for. Maybe it’s her taste in music, maybe it’s a fight every time they turn on the radio.

Whatever it is, it’s definitely not sports. They probably love her for that, it’s the whole reason why she’s there. They probably don’t resent all the afternoons taken up, the away games, the hours wasted bumming around the batting cages, bored out of their minds but with nowhere else to go, no one else they wanted to be with. It’s probably not homework, they seem as nerdy and overachieving as Adora. It certainly wouldn’t be partying, given how uptight they were about Catra’s flask at their precious little dance.

But it’s got to be something. There’s _got to be_ , because the alternative, that they’re all as perfect for each other as they look, as perfect as Catra could never make herself, leaves her short of breath, nauseous, dizzy.

Suddenly she needs another drink.

It helps, it calms the thunder in her chest. And if one more drink did that much good, it’d be nonsensical, downright moronic to stop there. Catra might not be some try-hard honor roll geek, but she’s never been an idiot.

It’s four drinks in and the world is tilted and her head is foggy but her chest finally feels lighter when Lonnie slides up, trailed by some girl Catra vaguely remembers passing in the halls. Lonnie’s got that look on her face, smug like she’s pulling something off, and introduces them. Casually mentions how single Catra is and shoves fresh drinks in both of their hands before conveniently disappearing.

And the girl seems fine. She’s pretty in a generic sort of way, hair a brown so light it almost looks gold in the light from the bonfire they’re gathered around. She leans in close when Catra talks, laughs at every one of her jokes and a few things she didn’t mean to be funny, puts her hand on Catra’s arm and nods and looks so _interested_ that when she asks if Catra wants to take a walk it’s easy to just say yes.

Lonnie catches her eye as she passes, offers a smirk and a thumbs up. Catra grins and shrugs and it all looks so much easier than it feels, walking without stumbling and not getting lost inside her own thoughts.

It’s dark and quiet where they end up, but not too far from the rest of the party. Catra knows even before their mouths make contact that it’s not what she wants. But it’s her first kiss and it’s already happening so she waits. She tries it on like a thrift store coat, hoping it will fit better once it settles, once she gets used to it.

She puts her hands on the girl’s waist and tilts her neck up into the girl’s mouth and tries to make herself feel however she knows this is supposed to feel, but there’s nothing. It’s decaf coffee, it’s second hand smoke. It’s a handful of stale, dry cereal when you’ve skipped two meals because you mouthed off in class and the vice principal has you scrubbing bathrooms through breakfast and lunch as punishment, reminds you every time your stomach grumbles that it’s your own fault, you did this to yourself.

Catra pulls shakily away, stomach aching, lips tingling, and ducks her head when the girl tries to follow.

“No?” she asks, tone so neutral it’s almost bored.

“No,” Catra says, and her voice doesn’t waver and she’s glad.

And that’s all it takes because the girl nods and squeezes her hand and asks if she wants to walk back. Catra tells her to go on ahead, she’s going to head home.

It’s stupid, she knows, it’s dangerous to do this walk alone, in the dark, drunk. There’s a million ways to kill yourself out here when it’s daytime and you’re sober, but try as she might, Catra can’t bring herself to really worry about all that.

She wanders and slips in loose gravel but doesn’t fall, and when she hits the old emptied out industrial garage she stops and sends off a text to Scorpia. And then she heads on, towards the exit, and she means to put her phone away, she does, but somehow she thumbs through her contacts and taps Adora’s name and then it’s just ringing once, twice, _only twice_.

“Hello?” Adora’s voice is so breathy and so anxious and relieved and it wraps around Catra like a heavy blanket, a little too tight, but warm and soft all the same. “Catra? Are you there? Are you okay?”

She’d forgotten to answer, somehow. “Hey, Adora.”

Adora breathes out into the receiver and Catra swears she can feel it against her ear. “Hey.”

Catra hits the fence and goes quiet. It’s old, all metal and crumbly brick, and she’s been over it before, cut her hands open on it before and maybe tonight’s really not the night for this. She should turn around, follow it down to the old knocked down gate at the main entrance. But this way is faster, shorter, and something in her bones sings out for danger, so she takes the risk.

“Catra?” Adora prompts, anxious through the phone. “Are you okay?”

Catra’s halfway up the fence and it’s precarious this high, even though she’s a good climber. She’s shakier, less coordinated than usual after this many drinks and it’s cold out, the tips of her fingers are numb. She stays quiet. Focuses.

“I’m sorry,” Adora says, words spilling out of her in a rush, so fast they seem to trip over each other on the way to Catra’s ear. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I know you’re mad and I probably can’t change your mind, but I wanted you to know I’m sorry.”

This she pauses for, straddling the fence, toes of her sneakers digging in on either side to keep her balance as she sways. It proves to be a little too much multitasking, because this time she can’t keep the slur out of her voice when she asks, “What are you apologizing for, exactly?”

“For hurting you,” Adora says, carefully. Slow, so Catra knows she means it. “For not respecting your boundaries, for just showing up. I thought… I thought when I started seeing you again, it meant that you wanted to see me too. And I was scared to ask, because I didn't want you to tell me no, so I just did what I wanted to, like it would be okay because... But I should have asked. I should have let you shut me down, if you wanted to.”

“I did anyway, though,” Catra points out. “I told you to fuck off.”

Adora’s breath hitches and she pauses and when she speaks her voice is tight, ragged like she’s chewing glass. “I know. I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.”

Catra’s been waiting so long for this that she almost doesn’t know what to do with the apology now that she has it. 

There’s something inside of her that she knows is all twisted around. Something way deep down that had grown all _wrong_ , and it’s disappointed by the apology, because it means Adora won’t do this again. Adora won’t take the choice to see her out of Catra’s hands anymore. If Catra wants to be near her, she’ll have to ask or she’ll have to go to Adora herself. No more plausible deniability. And it’s fucked up, she knows, to resent having a choice placed back in her hands when so many people have taken so many of them away from her, but she hates the responsibility.

More than that, there’s a part of her that’s frustrated that she won’t have this to be angry over anymore.

And it’s a scary thing to lose, when she’s been left in the cold time and time again, and the only thing that’s kept her warm has been the anger. The only comfort has been in the fact that it wasn’t her fault.

But still relief washes over her, flows over the doubt, like cool water over a burn. Not healed but soothed. It’s not the first time Adora’s apologized, but there’s a weight to it tonight that feels real, feels solid.

It’s good, she decides, shaking out a crick in her neck. The air feels misty and cold, but the moon is so bright and it’s _beautiful_. She shivers, tries to shake some feeling back into her fingertips, but a little bit of suffering is a small price to pay for all this quiet and moonlight. 

“Okay,” she says finally and pauses again to think. Her ass is starting to go numb. She needs to get down from this fence before she falls and kills herself. “Hang on.”

It’s faster to get down, but she’s distracted and she loses her grip halfway down. She scrambles on instinct and makes things worse, palms and bare arms scraping as she falls. The landing is rough, her ankle buckling on impact. She hits the dirt hard, groans aloud and huffs, but after a moment she can stand. Her ankle twinges at the weight she puts on it, but it holds up and nothing feels broken.

Her arms are scratched and bleeding, but some careful prodding determines that they’re superficial wounds. It’s hard to see in the dark but she sweeps the pads of her fingers down over them, feels only a shallow sort of pain, and thinks they’re probably clean enough.

Goosebumps prickle her skin and a trickle of blood drips down towards her hands. She can hear Scorpia’s voice in her head, trying to convince her to bring a jacket. She’d refused for no good reason, chasing the easy high of saying no, of not doing what she was told, of having her own way.

It bit her in the ass and it always does but she knows it won’t be enough, she’ll do it all over again tomorrow and the next day and the next.

“Catra?” Adora’s frantic voice sounds from where her phone had landed, miraculously cushioned by a patch of brush. “Catra are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Catra assures, a bit breathlessly. The heel of her palm stings when she picks up the phone, but it’s easy to ignore. She trudges forward, heads for the dirt path that will lead her down the hill, toward the road back into town.

“Where are you? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Catra says.

“Please tell me where you are,” and Adora’s practically begging now.

“I’m on my way home,” Catra says, which is technically true. She can hear Adora take a breath, knows another question is about to spill out between them. She cuts in before Adora speaks, the words a messy, thoughtless rush. “I’m so fucking mad at you, still.”

She wanted to shut Adora up and it worked and it’s the _truth_ and it’s not like it’s anything new. She shouldn’t feel bad about it. It makes no sense to feel bad about it.

“I know,” Adora croaks, finally, when Catra refuses to elaborate. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry I’m mad at you?” Catra interrogates lazily. _Fuck it_ , she didn’t plan on doing this tonight. Or ever, really. But everything’s so hard these days, it all hurts so much, so what is there left to lose? 

She’s drunk enough that she can deny it all tomorrow anyway, when it all blows up in her face.

“I’m sorry you’re mad,” Adora says carefully. “And that I made you mad. That I hurt you.”

“Are you sorry you left?”

“I’m sorry it hurt you.”

Catra thinks about hanging up. Is distracted enough by the pain in her ankle and a sudden sharp cold blast of wind to not do it. “That’s not what I asked you.”

“I know,” Adora admits. Catra hears something rustling. It’s past midnight. Adora’s probably in bed, had probably been asleep or trying to when Catra called. And still, _two rings._ “I don’t know how to answer that. I think… if I knew when they first offered me the scholarship…”

Catra waits and walks and bites her lip against the pain.

“If you knew what?” She prompts finally, because they’re in too deep to leave anything half finished now.

Adora speaks softly, as if coming out of a daze. “If I’d known it’d cost me you. Us. I don’t think I could have done it.”

_Us_ is still ringing through her head like a gunshot when Catra hears herself press, “Would you do it again? If you could go back right now?”

“I can’t, though. Go back and do it again,” Adora says. “I don’t want to think about it like that.”

It’s the only way Catra can think about it.

“I’m sorry for that too, then,” Adora says.

And _fuck_ , she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“Is it better there?” Catra asks, because she can't dance around it anymore, not when the fear is so big it feels like it's swallowing her and she’s so, so tired of fighting it. “Is it better without me?”

“ _No_ ,” Adora’s voice is louder than it’s been this whole call, almost a shout. Exasperated. “I like it here. I like my classes and I like the people and I like what it’s done for me. All my top schools have already made offers, Catra. I can go wherever I want from here.”

And she knew that already, but it hurts anyway, that she’s so much better off at Bright Moon and despite it Catra can’t be happy for her at all.

“But I miss you all the time,” Adora says. “I want to see you every day. So bad it hurts sometimes.”

“You fucked me over,” Catra spits, because there’s _guilt_ now that’s slipping in through the cracks in her anger. And _she_ shouldn’t be the guilty one, when Adora’s choices did this to them. “You left me here.”

“I didn’t think I was leaving you,” Adora snaps, finally, with a bitter laugh. Catra can picture her with her jaw set hard, eyes flinty like they get when she’s fed up. Catra feels like a thorn or a splinter, wedged in the pad of Adora’s thumb or the palm of her hand. The only way she feels close to her anymore is this way, digging her way under Adora’s skin; if it hurts, that’s fine. Catra hurts every damn day and she’s not above spreading the pain around a little. “I didn’t _go_ anywhere, I’m just across town. I could see you every day if you let me.”

“You _did_ see me every day,” Catra bites out. “When you were here. You can’t get mad at me over this. You can’t whine like a little bitch because your actions have consequences.”

“You keep acting like I just up and abandoned you, but you threw me away too, Catra. I wanted you in my life, I never, _ever_ told you I wanted anything else, but you kicked me to the curb the moment I picked something I wanted for myself for once.”

“That’s not _fucking_ fair!”

“ _None_ of this has been fair!” Adora has _finally_ , truly lost her cool, because her voice is shaking like it only ever does when she’s on the verge of tears.

“You _left_.”

“I wasn’t _trying to_ ,” Adora says. “I thought I’d still have you. I thought you cared enough about me to get through this with me.”

“If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t be this fucking miserable.” She means it to be cutting, harsh, but it falls from her lips weak, airy. Shockingly, embarrassingly, breathtakingly revealing. 

She waits and waits and listens to Adora breathe on the phone and wonders how the _fuck_ she can talk them back into something normal. This much raw honesty hurts, like her arms scraped across a fence, like angry red sunburns from weeks and weeks of landscaping assignments no one else had to do all summer, like her hands cracked and bleeding after being punished with a straight month of dishwashing, no gloves.

“I kissed someone tonight,” is what she says, instead of anything that could diffuse the situation _at all_.

“Oh,” Adora replies.

Catra’s head is swimming and her ankle hurts and it’s _so_ fucking cold. “Where are you?”

“In my dorm room.”

“What building do you live in?” Catra asks, closing her eyes and picturing what the Bright Moon grounds looked like through the iron bars of the gate the other night.

“C Hall,” Adora says, absently. She swallows so loud Catra can hear it. “Room 204.”

“Come pick me up, okay?” Catra asks and her voice is so high suddenly and she realizes she’s crying but it’s okay, it’s fine, she just had too much to drink. She’s at the base of the hill, finally, and there’s a bus stop just a little ways down the road. She heads toward it, ankle throbbing. “I hurt— I hurt my ankle.”

“Okay,” Adora says and now she’s got that confident, calm tone she’s been missing all night. “Okay, where are you?”

“Dyer Road,” Catra says. “You know, by the—”

“Quarry,” Adora finishes. “I’ve got to borrow a car or get a ride or something but I’ll be there soon. Are you safe? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Want me to stay on the line?”

“You can go,” Catra says. Her chest is so tight and her face feels so hot and she’s suddenly trembling with doubt and dread. This was such a mistake. She’s such a fuckup. “You don’t have to come out here, actually. I can make it home. I don’t know why I asked for—”

“Fifteen minutes. Don’t go anywhere,” Adora says and hangs up.

X.x.x

Catra walks until she hits the bus stop and settles down onto it. She waits with a ball of lead in her stomach weighing her down, down, down toward the ground. She feels sick. She feels elated. She feels _scared_.

Adora promised fifteen minutes but it can’t be much more than ten before the car pulls up. It’s a nice car, a Lexus that looks almost brand new, gleaming in the moonlight, so quiet it must be electric. Glimmer’s in the driver’s seat, looking groggy and suspicious with Bow slouched down sleepily in the passenger seat beside her, and Catra thinks there’s no way she can get in that car. Thinks she’s about to puke all over her shoes before she even gets a chance to say no fucking thank you.

But then Adora’s throwing the back door open and rushing over to her. Catra tenses and waits for the slew of questions, the recriminations, maybe another list of all the ways Catra sucks as a friend and a person, but there’s nothing. Just Adora crouching down in front of her, gingerly uncurling her arms from her midriff, stretching them out to inspect the damage and hissing in sympathy at what she finds.

“It’s freezing,” Adora murmurs and then shrugs off her jacket. Wisely, she doesn’t try to maneuver Catra’s arms into the sleeves, just drapes it over her shoulders.

“I’ll get blood on it,” Catra protests weakly, halfheartedly leaning away.

Adora shakes her head. “I don’t care.”

Bright Moon gold and white. It doesn’t fit well, much too big, and probably looks ridiculous on her, but it’s warm and she’s cold and she’s tired. There’s something steadying about Adora’s hand on the small of her back, despite everything. Something that gives her the strength to put one foot in front of the other, duck her head gingerly and slide into the backseat of the nicest car she’s ever been in.

She tracks mud in over the pristine cream interior and instead of feeling triumphant and satisfied, she feels dirty and ashamed, face heating swiftly. She keeps her eyes down, loathes every second the interior lights stay on after Adora shuts the door behind them.

“Thanks, Glimmer,” Adora says quietly. “Bow.”

“No problem,” Bow says.

Glimmer hums and pulls a u-turn and Catra does not look up to catch her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Is she okay?” Glimmer asks, after a tense moment.

Catra can feel Adora looking at her, trying to puzzle out an answer.

“So, do you guys do like every goddamn thing together? Is that your gimmick? God, that must be exhausting. Do you even get a chance to wipe your asses by yourselves or is it really all buddy system all the time?” It’s ugly and mean and completely inappropriate, but it’s like a cough or a hiccup, something automatic her body does that she can't even think of stopping.

“Catra,” Adora says, quiet, _disappointed_ and Catra feels herself flush harder in shame.

“Well,” Bow drawls quietly. “Guess she’s alright, then.”

Glimmer barks out a laugh and turns up the radio and they slip into quiet conversation in the front seat together. Catra tries to block out their voices, tries to send her mind away from here. It’s mostly successful, except for the times Adora chimes in and Catra can’t control the way she automatically focuses in on Adora’s voice, or the way it makes her feel better even right now.

She expects to get dropped off at the Academy, is surprised when they drive past it, but doesn’t trust herself enough to speak up and ask what’s happening without ruining something again. Besides, if she’s not going home it’s obvious enough where they mean to take her.

Adora leans in close when they pull into the Bright Moon parking lot and whispers. “We have to be really quiet, okay? We’re breaking like fifty rules right now.”

Catra wants to make a joke about the situation, about the risk Adora’s taking for _her_ , after all of this, but nothing she can think of is funny at all, so she nods instead.

The Bright Moon dorms are _nice_ , all plush rugs and polished floors. The halls at the Academy are all angular panels and dark woods, it makes everything feel small, oppressive. Bright Moon’s architecture is more modern, everything in whites and golds and soft pastel accents. It feels expansive and shiny and new.

Adora looks more at home here, in these bright yawning spaces than she ever did in the cramped corridors of the Academy, Catra realizes with a distant ache.

They usher her into Adora’s room while Adora and Glimmer linger in the hallway, speaking in hushed tones on the other side of the door.

It’s different than she imagined, about the same size as Catra’s room at the Academy. It’s messier than the room they shared had ever been, with no one around to nag Adora into cleaning up after herself. There’s a little shelf on the wall, home to a modest display of awards, like she imagined. There’s a few more atop her dresser, but the desire to send them all crashing to the floor just won’t reignite inside of Catra’s chest, no matter how hard she glares at them.

A math book is spread open on Adora’s desk and Catra can’t help but peak down at the half-finished homework laid out. It’s pure instinct, nothing deliberate at all, that guides her hand to the pencil at the spine, that has her scribbling corrections on the problems Adora’s gotten wrong.

The door opens and she drops the pencil like it’s gone molten, stumbling back away from the desk with a gasp she can’t quite suppress.

Adora watches her for a long moment, but mercifully chooses not to comment. “Hey.”

Catra nods, throat too tight to speak through. Adora doesn’t seem to mind the silence, approaching slowly and rolling her computer chair out for Catra to sit in. She slides the jacket from Catra’s shoulders wordlessly, leaving it in a careless heap on the floor as she drops to one knee, focusing in on the scrapes on Catra’s arms.

She murmurs Catra’s name and her hands slip further down, pausing at Catra’s wrists before gently uncurling her fists. The scrapes on her palms are uneven and shallow, but they sting when she flex her hands. She winces and Adora hums in sympathy. “Ouch, huh? How’s your ankle?”

“S’fine,” Catra says, tensing involuntarily as Adora continues her appraisal. 

Adora goes slow, giving Catra time to pull away as she begins unlacing Catra’s boots, gently slides her feet free of them. She’s quiet as she works, brow furrowed in concentration as she takes Catra’s heel in one palm, gently grips Catra’s ankle with the fingers of her other hand and rolls her foot carefully. “That hurt?”

Kind of, but, “Not bad.”

Adora hums again, thoughtful. Pushes harder and watches Catra’s face to gauge her reaction, but the flare of pain is mild. “Not broken. And it’s not swollen too badly, so if it’s a sprain it’s just a little one.”

There’s a knock on the door and Catra yanks her foot back instinctively, or tries to. Adora follows the motion, grip firm but not painful, so she doesn’t hurt herself. She catches Catra’s eyes warningly before gently releasing her and answering the door.

Glimmer hands off a basin of water and a washcloth and a small first aid box and leaves with only one curious glance toward Catra.

Adora kneels at her feet again, and touches her again and is gentle again and Catra’s too exhausted to pretend she doesn’t enjoy it. Adora’s so slow and so careful and so thorough that it barely even hurts as she cleans and dresses Catra’s wounds. They’re quiet and for a moment the world is paused and comfortable again and then Adora says, “You can’t keep doing this.”

The peace that had built in Catra’s chest shatters, instantly. She swallows back the apology in her throat, says instead, “I won’t call you next time.” 

Adora shakes her head, sharp and pauses what she’s doing to catch Catra’s eye. “That’s not what I meant. But you _keep_ getting hurt and—”

It’s like a bucket of ice water dumped over Catra’s head, when Adora’s voice breaks like that, mouth screwed up like she’s trying not to cry. She reaches out without thinking, runs her fingers through Adora’s hair, is tremendously relieved when Adora’s face smooths out and she leans into the touch.

She’s trying to figure out what else to say when Adora speaks up again.

“I don’t like that the only times I get to touch you anymore are when you’re hurt,” Adora says.

It sucks all the air out of the room.

Because she’s drunk and because she’s desperate and because she needs to find a way to control what’s happening before it slips all the way out of her hands, Catra drops her voice, leans in suggestively and asks, “Spend a lot of time in here thinking about the other ways you wanna touch me?”

Adora should flinch. She should flush and recoil and stammer and move back.

She shouldn’t breathe out slow like that, shouldn’t tighten her hand on Catra’s knee just a little bit more, shouldn’t say, “Yes.”

Nothing tonight is going the way that it should anyway, so Catra curls the hand in Adora’s hair into a fist, tugs experimentally, just lightly. Adora’s breath hitches audibly, immediately, and it’s the last boost of encouragement Catra needs to lean in and brush their lips together.

And here’s the feeling. It’s like this spark and it had been asleep inside of her, and kissing that other girl tonight was like dropping a lit match to wet tinder, burning itself out futilely, but this is all kerosene and open flames. A brush fire at the height of summer, the kind of thing that clears whole forests, takes lives, consumes everything in its path. Adora gasps into the kiss and trembles under Catra’s hands and she feels wild and out of control and powerful and vulnerable and insanely, irrevocably _at home._

But then Adora pulls away, eyes shut, chest heaving like she’s struggling to breathe. “No.”

It’s a sledgehammer to the solar plexus, it stings like nothing’s ever stung before and Catra can’t even find the strength to lash out, she’s so dazed. Just blinks dumbly and whispers, “okay,” and tries to struggle to her feet.

“Catra, wait, just—” Adora’s voice is frantic, and it cuts through the fog in Catra’s head. “You’re drunk, that’s all.”

And it’s true and they both know it, but it would be easier if it didn’t matter. She’s not sure she has what it takes to do this all sober. “Yeah, okay. Sorry. I can go.”

“I don’t want you to,” Adora says in a rush. “But I wouldn’t be able to take it, if I let you kiss me and you didn’t mean it. And I can’t… I can’t be sure like this.”

Catra wants to assure her, wants to give up fighting and admit that everything hurts and nothing makes sense but the one thing she’s _knows_ is that she means _this._ But the words all get stuck in her throat, and she nods and doesn’t reach out when Adora pulls away.

She downs a bottle of water on Adora’s instruction, tiredly shrugs her way out of her filthy party clothes and into the spare pajamas Adora offers. Adora turns down the sheets and guides Catra carefully into her bed.

She’s startled and embarrassed and unaccountably pleased to find one of her ratty old t-shirts covering one of Adora’s pillows in lieu of a pillowcase. It’s been a few weeks, she realizes dimly, since she’s seen it in her closet. Adora must have stolen it on one of the nights she crashed at the Academy.

Adora notices her staring and her eyes widen, her face flushes prettily, and suddenly all of the “I miss you”s that Catra’s been so scared to let herself believe are converted into fact in front of her.

“I, uh,” Adora hesitates, clearly fishing for some excuse. After a moment she sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m sorry.”

It’s surprising when she slips off the bed, dragging the extra blanket at the foot of the bed down onto the floor with her.

“You’re not sleeping up here?” Catra asks, needier than she means to sound, but there’s no point denying it now. She’s missed Adora’s warmth, missed her nearness, missed her breath on Catra’s shoulder through the night.

Adora licks her lips, looks pained but determined. “Not tonight.”

Not tonight.

It’s good enough.

Catra settles into the bed and counts Adora’s breaths until she can’t count anything anymore.


	5. What's It Gonna Be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT. a huge thanks to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) for all her help getting this thing finished. i'm not exaggerating when i say that this fic wouldn't be half as good or half as finished without her patience and invaluable feedback. massively, massively grateful. as always s/o to [arys](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins) for letting me write a fic inspired by their art!
> 
> this is the last full-length chapter. an epilogue will be up next week, to wrap it all up.
> 
> fic title from the song by mansions. chapter title from the song by shura
> 
> cw for referenced child abuse and underage drinking

It’s not the _worst_ hangover Catra’s ever had, but it’s up there.

She wakes by degrees, each worse than the last.

First there’s the dryness of her mouth, a shock of pain with each weak swallow of her sandpaper throat. Then there’s the throbbing at her temples, the pressure behind her eyes that mounts with each passing second. Her muscles, sore and leaden, protest as she shifts groggily on the mattress. The movement spurs a sick churn in her stomach that she knows will only intensify as keeps waking up.

It takes several long, painful moments to work up the courage to open her eyes.

The light filtering through the blinds is, thankfully, weak, more white than yellow.

So. Early still, which make sense, because she never manages to sleep for long when she gets as wasted as she had been last night.

Still, it’s a rough adjustment, punctuated by long, slow blinks that heighten the pain that pulses her skull. It’s like she can feel every vein in her head and they’re all about to burst.

“Fuck,” she groans, voice barely more than a strangled croak.

“Catra?” Adora’s soft, sleepy voice is a shock, one that sends Catra’s heart thundering in her chest.

Everything floods back. Getting fucked up at the quarry, nearly breaking her neck on the walk home, getting picked up off the side of the road by Adora’s little squad, getting cleaned up, kissing Adora—

 _Kissing Adora_.

“Fuck,” she chokes out again, turning her face into the pillow.

The pillow that’s covered in her shirt. The one that Adora stole from her room.

 _Fuck, fuck,_ fuck _._

“Hey,” Adora’s voice is much, much closer though still just as soft. Then there’s warm fingers through her hair, pushing it back away from her face, trailing softly down her neck, nails raking just lightly, lightly and Catra can’t control the way the gentle contact bleeds the tension from her aching muscles.

“Hey,” she mumbles, weakly. The thunder in her chest has quieted, eased into a steadiness that feels more real than everything else, than the dim, flickering tv static that makes up the rest of her.

Adora’s fingers rake through her hair once more before they disappear. She clenches her teeth against the loss, but it only lasts a moment. The hand returns to her hair and then lower, the center of Adora’s palm fitting against the curve of Catra’s shoulder, urging her to roll onto her side. She could resist, could hunker down and stay where she pleases but she goes easily. It’s early. They’re both calm, somehow. It’s not worth fighting yet.

“You should probably drink something,” Adora says, a small, serious frown tugging at her lips. With her other hand she guides an opened bottle of water to Catra’s mouth.

It’s instinct, auto-pilot more than conscious thought that has Catra parting her lips, tilting her head slightly back to allow Adora to pour the water down her throat. She closes her eyes and groans at the sensation, the relief of the cool water in her parched, dry mouth.

The bottle disappears. Catra opens her eyes to find Adora’s eyes wide, her face pink, her mouth parted just slightly and lets herself enjoy the resulting thrill of power at putting that expression on Adora’s face, despite the persistent feeling that Catra’s skull might shatter like a fallen dinner plate at any moment.

“I’ve, um, never had a hangover, y’know,” Adora says after a beat, eyes skittering away for a moment before she swallows and meets Catra’s gaze again. “So, you’re gonna have to tell me what you need.”

The steady rhythm in Catra’s chest stutters and she wonders if maybe it shows on her face, if Adora can see the way ‘tell me what you need’ slipped right past the blankets, her cotton t-shirt, her tissue paper skin and wedged itself perilously between her ribs, pointed end just gently kissing her heart. It’s a dangerous feeling, teetering on the edge, with Adora’s hand on her shoulder. Adora could push her off or pull her in and Catra’s not in the habit of being at anyone’s mercy, not when she can help it.

There’s that instinct even now to dash herself on the rocks, just so that she can keep the choice for herself. But there’s a hunger inside her, something that aches deeper than any other pain, and it wants to lay back down and let Adora prove that she can do the job she’s promising.

“Got any aspirin?” she asks, finally.

Adora sighs, shoulders slackening, the stitch in her brow smoothing as she shuffles back from the bed and fiddles in the drawer of the nightstand. “How’s your stomach? Think you can handle some crackers?”

Catra’s guts are an absolute black hole, a yawning cavern, and they ache from the emptiness. And somehow she still manages feels queasy all the same. It’s experience over instinct that leads her to agree, knowing that painkillers on an empty stomach will only make everything worse. “A couple.”

Slowly, she draws herself to sitting, legs over the side of the bed, bare feet scraping the ice-cold hardwood. She feels a pang of guilt, glancing at the makeshift pile of blankets that Adora had slept on last night.

“Kicked you out of your bed,” she croaks absently, flushing a little at the sound of her voice. She clears her throat anxiously.

“Huh?” Adora hums and finally returns to kneel next to the bed once more. She opens a pack of saltine crackers, carefully breaks one in half over her palm, and offers it to Catra with a sheepish, disarming half-grin. “Oh, yeah. Don’t sweat it, my back’s been a little sore lately, I think that actually helped.”

“Your back?” Catra prompts, grateful when Adora takes the bait and begins absently prattling on about the rigorous practice schedule she’s on, how hard their coach pushes them, and how she’s so sure she must have pulled something during warmups the other day. Adora’s voice breaks the unbearable silent stillness of the morning, makes enough space around Catra’s lungs for her to be able to _breathe_.

She focuses on just that, slow and steady, and eating as many of the crackers as she can without upsetting the fragile truce between her stomach and the rest of her body. Adora watches carefully through her lighthearted rambling, offers two copper tablets before Catra even has to ask. She keeps one hand on Catra’s knee the whole time, rubbing her thumb in circles on the side of the joint.

It’s almost hard to swallow, with Adora touching her like that, watching her like that, but she manages anyway; nothing if not resilient. Adora squeezes her knee again and it’s like marionette strings are tugging the corner of Catra’s mouth up into a smile she didn’t plan, wasn’t ready to give.

“Bathroom?” she asks because she needs a minute and her legs finally feel solid enough to support her.

Adora escorts her down the hall, offers gallantly to wait outside and keep watch because, oh yeah, Catra’s really not supposed to be here.

Catra lingers at the mirrors when she’s done. She looks a mess, unruly dark curls askew. There’s thin scratches on her cheek, one along the curve of her jaw, and dark, thumb-sized bruises under her eyes. The skin of her palms barely hurts when she cups them under the stream of water and splashes it against her face, but they’ve scabbed enough not to bleed again. Her ankle throbs distantly, but it’s the cut on her arm that stings loud enough to draw a hiss from her when flexes her arms, staring as the bandages and muscles shift in the mirror.

It’s a pretty pathetic picture, all told.

And Adora’s outside, she’s waiting, and she’s been dealing with _this_ all morning but somehow the idea of walking back out there is mortifying.

Something changed last night, Catra knows. Something they can’t undo. Whatever it is that they were dancing around for so long, they kicked it off the edge and now it’s rolling down, it’s picking up speed, but it’s still far enough off, Catra thinks, for her to jump out of the way.

The fall would hurt. The fall might kill her, but it wouldn’t be the same as getting hit and maybe that counts for something.

If she wants to leave, wants to put a stop to this, she’s running out of time.

When she leaves this bathroom, the whole thing will unpause, and she’ll either go back to Adora’s room and let this play out, or she’ll head home herself and stop it. She knows, Adora’s words from last night echoing in her head, that if she leaves again that will be the end of it. She won’t be chased. It can be over.

She tries to want that more, but the thought swirls sickeningly in her stomach.

To stay is terrifying, but leaving would be total destruction. And, god, it’s been a long year. She’s had her fill of annihilation. And maybe this is the stupidest thing she’s ever done, maybe she’ll hate herself for it later, but today she squares her shoulders, steps back into the hall. 

Adora’s whole body is tense, shoulders square, and _god_ , she’s tall. Her right cheek is hollowed in, Catra knows she must be chewing on it, a nervous tic she’d had since she was a kid. She thinks about Adora’s fingers skating through her hair just minutes ago and allows her own hand to slip forward, brushing the pads of her fingers against the inside of Adora’s wrist, hopes that it’s enough.

Adora shivers at the contact, lets out a long slow breath and smiles a little dazedly as she walks them back to the room, so maybe it was. Maybe they can learn how to do this.

“You wanna lay down again?” Adora asks.

Catra does. She feels better now, more stable, but fatigue still rests heavy in her muscles and the cold prickles her skin. She slips back under the sheets before she has a chance to second guess herself.

Adora hesitates for just a moment, caught between the bed and her spot on the floor and Catra seizes her opportunity, “I’m not drunk anymore.”

Adora freezes, watches Catra’s face carefully and licks her lips. “I know.”

“It’s cold,” Catra says, shuffles back on the mattress and tugs the blankets down to make her point.

“You sure?” Adora asks lowly, still suspended at the edge of the bed and it’s easy, for a moment, to be frustrated. But there’s too much sincerity on Adora’s face, too much tenderness in her voice, for Catra to hold onto the feeling. There’s no power play here, no matter how hard Catra tries to find one, just Adora trying so hard not to fuck up again.

“I’m sure,” Catra breathes and bites her tongue and waits while Adora finally, finally slides into bed with her.

The mattress dips just slightly with the extra weight and Catra follows it, lets her body slide back into Adora’s. She turns to the wall, not yet ready to watch Adora’s face this close, but craving the nearness.

She can feel Adora’s breathlessness, the stiffness of her body as she tries to figure out the next right move. She waits for that feeling of triumph, of power to wash over her but it doesn’t come. There’s just warmth and this strange, sudden urge to soothe that guides her to seek Adora’s clenched hands at her side, to pull one over her body and curl it around her hip, uncurling the fingers of Adora’s fist and pressing her palm flat against the middle of Catra’s belly.

“Yeah?” she checks quietly, because Adora’s still tense, and if looking at Adora’s face this way is too much for Catra, then maybe being this close at all is too much for Adora.

But the word seems to do something, because Adora’s body melts against her back, the palm on her belly flexing just enough to drag a slow, faint circle with nails along the cotton of Catra’s sleep shirt. “Yeah.”

It takes a long time for Catra to fall back asleep, but she’s safe and content, and the gentle puff of Adora’s breath on the back of her neck keeps her steady and grounded, so she really doesn’t mind.

X.x.x

The second time she wakes is a lot less peaceful.

This time it’s later, the bright mid-morning sun that’s illuminating the room is driving spikes through her eyelids, and there’s this incessant, awful _buzzing_ that won’t quit—

Until it does.

Catra breathes and groans, tugging the arm slung across her waist tighter over her body and burrowing further into the blankets.

Then the buzzing starts again and _oh_ , that’s her _phone—_

Catra’s up on all fours, scrambling across Adora’s body to reach the phone on the nightstand. She puts a knee into Adora’s side, feels the pained _oomph_ leave her body and winces in sympathy but the phone’s already in her hands and Scorpia’s name flashes across the screen and she’s answering before she can apologize.

So, she scared the shit out of her friends.

In retrospect, texting that she was going to walk home alone drunk and then disappearing was bad form. It takes a solid minute and a half of back and forth to establish that yes, she’s actually okay, not dead in a ditch somewhere.

“Bright Moon?” The frantic edge in Scorpia’s voice is finally gone, swallowed up by surprise. “With…?”

“Yeah,” Catra says, lowly, flushing despite her best efforts. She ceases her pacing and glances back toward the bed. Adora’s slid across the mattress up against the wall. She’s propped up on her elbow, blankets pooled at her waist, blue eyes locked on Catra, like she’s the only thing that exists in the whole world. It makes Catra flush harder, turn her body away to finish the sentence. “With Adora.”

“Like, on purpose?” Scorpia asks and thank _God_ it breaks the tension.

Catra laughs, “Yeah. Yeah, on purpose.”

“We’re gonna talk about that, right?”

“We will,” Catra promises, surprised to find she’s almost looking forward to it instead of feeling cagey and harassed. 

“You _really_ scared the crap out of everyone,” Scorpia says. Catra swallows, uncomfortable, but makes herself wait because she knows there’s more. “I was really freaked out. You didn’t answer your door last night. And when we tried to call you from the hallway this morning we couldn’t hear your phone, and that’s how we knew you were gone.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Entrapta,” Scorpia says. “Kyle and Lonnie drove back out to the Quarry. We were gonna wait another hour, then go to Weaver if we couldn’t find you—”

“ _Please_ don’t do that,” Catra interrupts before she can stop herself. The aftermath would be catastrophic. Weaver’s been needling and pushing Catra all year, but as much as it’s sucked, as bad as it’s been, she knows it’s child's play. She hasn’t actually fucked up bad enough to really get into serious trouble, but something like _this_ would leave her totally at Weaver’s mercy.

“We won’t, we won’t,” Scorpia assures her. “That would have been, like, a last last resort. If Lonnie and Kyle couldn’t find you and you might actually be…”

“I’m sorry,” Catra says, feeling ashamed and awkward. She’s not used to worrying people. Not used to having people to worry. Only, that’s not entirely true, is it? Because Scorpia and Entrapta have been here all year, and Lonnie and Kyle too, and it’s not like they only started caring last night when they couldn’t find her. 

Fuck, she’s such a prick.

“I know,” Scorpia says, a little more brightly than before and something loosens in Catra’s chest. “I’ll call the others. They’ll be happy you’re okay, but not so much that they were freaked out all morning and went off on a wild goose chase, y’know?”

“Yeah, I’ll make it up to ‘em,” Catra mutters, rubbing her forehead at the worsening of her headache. “And you and Entrapa too.”

“You coming home today?” Scorpia asks, somewhere between a request and a question. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Text if something comes up.”

“I will.”

With a last exchange of goodbyes, Catra ends the call, turning around to find Adora sitting on the edge of the bed now, bare arms braced on either side of her, still watching her intently.

“Uh,” Catra clears her throat, gaze darting nervously away in a vain attempt not to ogle Adora’s ridiculous biceps. “Scorpia,” she announces uselessly.

Adora nods and shifts her weight back, crossing her arms in front of her, muscles bulging slightly and, okay, _seriously,_ what is _with_ those things? What has she been _eating_ here at Bright Moon? 

Adora had always been kind of a jock, always been kind of jacked, but she had to have gotten like, _taller_ , right? And more ripped? Her body had never been _distracting_ like this before. Catra shakes her head hard, scrubs a palm down her face. Maybe she _had_ whacked her head in that fall last night.

“You in trouble?” Adora prompts gently and it snaps Catra mercifully out of her meltdown.

“I guess I freaked a couple people out pretty bad,” Catra admits. “But it’s okay. I’ll handle it.”

“Want me to take you back?” Adora offers, sounding reluctant.

 _She can’t wait to get rid of you_ , a voice in Catra’s head hisses. _Who could blame her?_

Catra flinches, shakes her head again and blinks hard. Adora’s still watching her from the bed, big eyes earnest and so blue and it doesn’t _look_ like she wants Catra to go.

But she probably should. She definitely should, the longer she’s here the more likely they are to get in trouble, and she doesn’t want that for Adora anymore.

“Yeah, I guess you should,” Catra agrees after a beat. Then, “You don’t have to take me, though. Just get me off campus, I can make it back from here.”

“Let me? Please?” Adora practically begs, desperate. She pauses, face screwed up in apparent embarrassment at her neediness. “I mean, you don’t have to but I, uh, I wanna walk you home. If that’s okay.”

“Okay, yeah,” Catra agrees and it’s _nice_ that Adora cares so much,but this sudden awkwardness is like a stone in her stomach sinking lower and lower.

They get dressed and it’s a quiet, efficient affair. Her clothes are gross, so Adora lends her a pair of jeans so long she has to roll the cuffs, and cinch a belt tightly at the waist to keep them on. She considers, just briefly, stripping the pillow and taking her shirt back, but finds she doesn’t want to take anything that Adora hasn’t offered. More than that, she likes what it means, that she wasn’t the only one left totally pathetic and sentimental at their separation. She ends up with a faded old Horde Athletics shirt she ties at the waist and a mustard yellow hoodie that’s not even a little bit her style.

She does what she can with her hair, but it’s kind of impossible without any product. Adora’s fine, straight hair is tamed easily with a few passes of a brush, but the best Catra can manage with her mane is something closer to controlled chaos after a few minutes of deliberate fiddling in front of the mirror.

“Good?” Adora asks finally, when there’s nothing left to do and they’re both just pointlessly lingering in the room. Catra nods, finds it tough to speak around the sudden lump in her throat, and takes a jerky step toward the door before Adora catches her around the wrist. “Catra, wait, I…”

 _This is it,_ Catra thinks. Adora’s struggle is plain on her face, eyes creased at the corners, mouth twisted into an anxious frown. She’s putting her words together, figuring out how to do what Catra was too stupid to do earlier when the chance was hers.

The worst part is that Catra knows Adora’s going to be _so nice_ about it. Let her down easy.

“I know last night was… I know you were drunk, and it was, like, _emotional_ ,” Adora starts, tugging Catra’s arm until Catra turns fully to face her.

_Here it comes._

“But I meant what I said,” Adora continues. “All of it. About how I feel. What I want.”

 _Oh_.

“But I know it was, like, a lot to put on you when you weren’t a hundred percent. And obviously I wouldn’t hold you to anything you said or… did, while you were, y’know. And, uh, I guess, what I wanna say is that if all you want is friends, I can do that too,” Adora says, finally catching Catra’s eyes again. “I have feelings for you, yeah. And it’d be cool if you felt the same way. But it doesn’t matter, okay? I won’t make it weird for you, I promise, if you don’t want what I want.”

“Okay,” Catra say and there’s a thousand words all crammed into her throat, but that’s the only one that’s able to squeeze its way out past her lips.

Adora deflates for just a second but she recovers nicely, mustering a wobbly little smile almost immediately. “You can think about it, if you need to. I’m not gonna push or anything, and if you need space I can do that this time, but I just… need you not to shut me out, okay?”

“Okay,” Catra says again and kind of hates herself for it because it’s _so useless._ She kind of wants to _scream_ because that’s not what she wants. She wants—

Well. She wants to have done this a year ago, so that Adora would never have decided to leave at all. She wants it to be easier, she wants to be sure, she wants to understand what’s going on and how to control it and make it last and not be scared anymore.

“Catra?” Adora prompts gently, and there’s something achingly raw and needy in her voice that all of Catra’s racing thoughts crash into and splinter against.

Adora’s a lot of things. But she’s not a coward and she’s not cruel.

There’s no trick here.

And there’s no way to do this a year ago, there’s no way to be any more in charge of it than the way she is right now, with the ball in her court.

That desperate instinct to dig in, to seize this fragile thing between them with claws and teeth will only tear it to pieces before it ever has a chance to grow. And her head still hurts and everything’s still so confusing and she has no idea what tomorrow even looks like for them, let alone the end of the year.

Maybe taking some time wouldn’t be that bad of an idea, afterall.

“I’ll call you tonight,” Catra promises, and it feels so weak but it’s all she can promise until she gets her head clear.

Adora looks genuinely relieved at that, forces another smile that’s still not as bright as they get when she really means it. “Okay. Cool. Um, let’s get you home, yeah?”

The sun is intense when they make their way outside, and Catra can’t help the involuntary hiss that slips out of her mouth. Adora winces in sympathy, tugging the ballcap off her head and settling it gently over Catra’s curls.

Catra sighs and pulls the brim down low and feels the tension in her body unwind with each careless brush of Adora’s knuckles against the back of her hand.

X.x.x

It’s a little conspicuous, how easy everyone’s taking it on her over the Bright Moon thing.

Oh, they’re all pissed, though Scorpia hides it best. They each take turns yelling at her over disappearing, and it becomes an almost unbearably obnoxious joke to list out all of the suicidally dangerous ways she could accomplish the most simple routine tasks, but Catra can’t really complain more than is expected. She earned as much.

But it’s impossible not to notice just how deliberately no one brings up Adora, even though Catra had immediately come clean about her whereabouts the night of the party.

The closest anyone comes is Lonnie, who eyes her carefully in the cafeteria over dinner Sunday evening. “You really blew it with Carla.”

It takes Catra a few beats too long to catch up, to realize Lonnie was talking about the girl she’d kissed last night, and it says a lot, probably, that the memory has already faded to a grainy footnote in her mind. Even if it is a little embarrassing that she hadn’t remembered the girl’s name.

“It never would have worked out,” Catra shrugs coolly, unable to tear her eyes away from the cold meatloaf she’s tearing into pieces with her fork. “Our names are too similar. No idea what you were even thinking with that one, Lonnie.”

And she braces for the turn in the conversation, the interrogation to follow, the ribbing that will tip from playful to accusatory almost immediately, but it never comes. Lonnie just laughs and shakes her head and the conversation moves on.

She’s offended, a little, at the obvious coddling.

But she’s relieved, too, enough to not pick a stupid fight over it.

It’s not as hard as she thought it would be, to work up the nerve to call Adora, who answers so fast Catra knows she must have been waiting for it. And then it’s just… easy.

After so many months of struggle and agony and rage and frustration Catra had forgotten that easy was a thing they were ever good at. 

And when it’s over, when they’ve both hung up, and it’s quiet and Catra’s alone again in the room they used to share together she holds her breath and waits for the crash.

And waits.

And waits.

But it never comes and when she finally slips into sleep, it’s peaceful.

So she calls again the next night and the next.

The week passes slowly. Catra sticks close to campus, gets work done on time, eats all of her meals with her friends. During the day she and Adora trade furtive pictures and texts about nothing and each night she slips away to her room and locks the door and listens to Adora tell her about sports and her classes and how much she misses her.

“You miss me?” Catra repeats stupidly, because it’s not the first time Adora’s said as much, but the last time had kicked off one of their worst fights, so she’s a little surprised to hear it again so soon.

“Yeah,” Adora says, easy, easy, how can she make it seem so easy? “Don’t you miss me?”

It’s such on obvious, stupid question she can’t help but get mad about it. Isn’t it apparent? Hasn’t it always been transparently, embarrassingly, pathetically clear? Adora knows, Adora has to know, so what’s the point of this, of making her admit it?

She asks.

“You never say it,” Adora answers, finally, after a pause so long Catra has to check that the call didn’t drop at the worst possible moment.

And, oh.

“Yeah,” Catra breathes, shaky, fighting every instinct that’s screaming no, hang up, be quiet, don’t give this part of you away. “I miss you. I’ve missed you.”

It’s quiet again and in this silence Catra can hear all the other things Adora isn’t asking; _will you see me? Can you be with me? Do you love me?_

But there’s too much she doesn’t know how to answer.

“Who’s your next game against?” Catra asks instead, even though she knows.

Adora exhales long and slow into the receiver. Then she clears her throat and her voice starts off weak, but gains steadiness as she goes.

Catra lets loose the breath she’d been holding and leans back into the pillows. When she closes her eyes it’s almost like it was a year ago, Adora here in the room with her, rambling on before bedtime.

She doesn’t know when she falls asleep, but she wakes at dawn and the call is still going, though her phone battery’s almost dead and the line is silent.

She hangs up, relieved beyond measure that she didn’t have to say goodbye.

X.x.x

She and Adora text between classes like it’s normal, and everything seems... _fine_ , but Catra can’t shake the dread fogging her mind, the sensation that she’s swaying on the edge of something awful, about to topple over.

It fucks with her head all day, distracts her in class, makes her crabby and snappish at lunch, and earns her another turn on janitorial duty when she can’t keep her temper in check and snaps back at a teacher in her last class of the day.

Weaver will hear about it, Catra knows. Hell, she’ll probably show up to Catra’s shift to watch her like a hawk and criticize her every move, to push and needle until Catra gives her something else to punish her with. And Catra _will_ because she’s never been able to not take the bait, to not confirm everyone’s worst assumptions of her, to not fuck up her own life at every opportunity.

It’s never been easy with Weaver, she’s spent Catra’s years as a student at the Academy taking particular delight in putting her down, catching her out, punishing her for the slightest slips.

But it wasn’t as hard, with Adora around. She’d been about the only student on Weaver’s good side, the sports prodigy the faculty counted on to inspire the more well-off parents and local sponsors to pour money into the athletics department. Weaver had gone easier on Catra because Adora always stuck close, always reminded Weaver of the star player she risked alienating if her punishments ever went too far.

With Adora gone, there’d been no such incentive to hold back. Catra’s spent more time stuck in detention, scrubbing toilets, digging up weeds, and being publicly berated this year than she has since she was a brand new student, just a stupid little kid who didn’t know how to hold anything back.

By the time the final bell rings, she’s practically crawling out of her skin with anxiety and she knows a second longer on campus might make her lose it, so she heads straight for the exit without even stopping at her dorm to change out of her uniform or drop off her backpack.

It’s only a half-conscious decision, really, heading off toward Bright Moon.

She arrives in the middle of practice, halts on the other side of the chain link fence surrounding the field and watches, suddenly unsure.

She’s here, at Adora’s school, unannounced and uninvited and they’d decided they wouldn’t do this anymore, right? She’s here and she’s in her uniform and Adora’s busy and things had been so weird last night and she shouldn’t have come at all. She’s here but, she can’t bring herself to leave, can’t handle the thought of going back to Academy, suffocating another night in her room.

But she can’t make up her mind. Can’t figure out what to do now that she’s here, but is pretty sure she shouldn’t be. So she doesn’t do anything except curl her fingers around the chainlink fence and lean her forehead into it and watch and breathe and wait.

Wait for Adora to notice which, of course, she does. 

Knowing that she would is why Catra came at all. More than anyone else, longer than anyone else, Adora’s always managed to notice Catra.

Almost always, which is what made it all so spectacular when things fell apart last year but she’s trying—

 _They’re_ trying to move on.

She watches as the distant figure of Adora stops, stares her way, has a quick exchange with someone who, judging by the ceremonial outfit of windbreaker and visor, must be the coach and then breaks into a jog towards her from across the field.

Adora, damn her, isn’t even a little winded when she reaches the fence. “Hey, Catra.”

She doesn’t sound angry. Not even hesitant. Just smooth, easy confidence, the hint of something playful and inviting bleeding through the edges. Catra’s world narrows and softens at once, the pressure in her ribcage dissipating into nothing like smoke on a breeze.

“Hey,” Catra echoes. Her heart thumps slow and steady in her chest and she can’t think of anything else to say. So of course her brain shorts out and she opens her mouth and says, “You guys looked like shit out there.”

There’s a suspended, breathless moment where Adora looks stunned and Catra entertains a brief but vivid fantasy of how dramatically simpler her life would be if she at least had the kind of good luck of people who get struck by lightning or who are hit and killed in random freak bus accidents.

And then Adora _laughs_. It’s short and sharp and loud, a little ugly and so _real_. “Oh yeah? Well, we’re still gonna kick Horde butt this month, so what does that say about you?”

Catra rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah. _Such_ a good team. Had to steal our ringer to actually stand a chance against us.”

Adora grins at the compliment, practically glowing and it warms Catra up from the inside out, makes her want to put that expression on Adora’s face again and again and again.

“Surprised you haven’t thrown your back out yet, carrying that team all day,” Catra offers casually, biting the inside of her lip to keep a straight face. 

Adora beams again, reaching out finally and wrapping her fingers around Catra’s over the fence. She leans in close, lets their foreheads press together through the gaps in the fence and Catra has to force herself to not pull away, to keep breathing steady, to not fall over even though her legs suddenly feel like they’re made of jelly.

“Come inside,” Adora implores, pulling Catra’s hands gently into the fence, like she could drag her through it and onto the other side if they both wanted it enough. “Just don’t say stuff like that where Coach can hear. Or anyone else, actually. They won’t think you’re as funny as I do.”

It’d be Catra’s third time on Bright Moon grounds, but her first real invitation. The easy, uncomplicated ‘yes’ she wants to offer gets caught in her throat. She clears it, but can only manage a cautious. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

It’s uncharacteristically gutless reply, the kind of weak-hearted hesitation she resents in no one more than herself and she wants to roll back the last thirty seconds and do them over. A yes or a no. Something definite, something strong.

Adora pulls back a little, regards Catra with the slightest tilt of her head. “C’mon a lot of people bring their…”

Catra sees a bit of panic flare across Adora’s face for the first time this entire conversation. It’s ridiculously, painfully obvious what word Adora was reaching for before she caught herself. Catra’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed, but she feels herself flush anyway, wants to turn and hide her face suddenly. She has to force herself not to move back or drop Adora’s gaze, to wait it out as she gathers herself again.

“People watch us practice sometimes,” Adora finishes gamely, brows dipped low in determination, and it’s that ridiculously stupidly simple. She looks like she wants this more than she’s ever wanted anything, like she’ll do anything to make it happen, and Catra’s heart flutters in her chest and she knows she’ll say yes.

In a minute.

“I don’t know,” Catra teases, flexing her fingers under Adora’s on the fence. “Not sure if I wanna waste my afternoon with a bunch of you Bright Goons. You’ve been here a while already, it’s pretty clear loser-ass dork disease is contagious.”

“If that’s the case, I’m pretty sure you’ve already been exposed,” Adora murmurs, voice low, eyes hooded and Catra flushes again, heat billowing out from her belly to her cheeks. Adora grins, smug and adds. “C’mon, I’ve been over here way too long. Coach is gonna be pissed and she’s gonna take that out on us by making us do like a zillion burpees. You definitely don’t wanna miss _that_.”

“It _would_ be pretty satisfying,” Catra agrees, and shrugs her backpack off. She throws it over the fence, pretending not to notice Adora’s wince as it hits the ground. She slots a shoe into one of the gaps in the fence and begins hoisting herself up.

“You can go around, y’know,” Adora starts, eyeing her cautiously. “Use the gate—”

Catra scrambles up over the fence and drops down onto the ground beside her almost before she’s finished speaking. She can feel the eyes of Adora’s curious teammates on her from afar, knows their scrutiny will only get more intense as she gets closer, but is glad to have made an entrance she can be proud of. “Not my style. Too boring.”

“God forbid you use a normal mode of entry like us spoiled Bright Goons, huh?” Adora says, scooping Catra’s backpack up off the ground before she can reach it and falling into step besides her back toward the diamond.

“You don’t get to call yourselves that, that’s our word for you,” Catra gripes, bumping Adora with her shoulder. “And besides, you’re one to talk, Romeo.”

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” Adora quotes and Catra bites down on an embarrassed giggle, feeling suddenly giddy and flustered in equal measures. She veers into Adora again, harder, but it only serves to make them both laugh more. “It is the east and Catra is _pissed_. And trying to knock me over. And totally gonna laugh when coach runs me into the ground for interrupting practice to flirt with her.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Catra mutters, yanking the backpack out from Adora’s hand. Or she tries to, but Adora keeps her grip, follows the motion until they bump into each other, and Adora’s lips connect with her cheek. It’s quick and she pulls back grinning and takes off before Catra has a chance to react.

X.x.x

Catra hadn’t really intended to stay past practice, but when Adora jogged up to her, panting in her gym shorts, sweating through her Bright Moon Athletics t-shirt, practically begging right off the bat without even having to be worked up to it, the yes kind of just slipped out of her.

She half expected another kiss on the cheek before Adora took off, but the brilliant smile she got instead was at least good enough to keep her glued awkwardly to the bleachers while Adora and the rest of her team marched off to the showers.

She’s not gone all that long really, but it’s enough time back in her own head to feel hopelessly out of place, to tear apart and second guess every half-formed thought and impulse that lead her to Bright Moon Prep on a weeknight, waiting for her ex-best friend and current… something, to come collect her. Take her somewhere else.

When Adora finally shows up she’s scrubbed clean, still flushed a little pink, damp hair soaking through the back of the clean shirt she’s changed into.

“You waited,” she says, and Catra thinks she could find something to feel bad about in Adora’s breathless surprise, but she’s trying to do less of that so she just shrugs, smiles back a little.

“Take me somewhere for dinner,” Catra says, squinting suspiciously as Adora’s curious teammates file out of the locker room, casting glances their way.

“Like a date?” Adora asks and it’s playful, but the edge of hope in her tone is impossible to deny.

Catra flushes, somehow both pleased and uncomfortable, “Like I’m hungry.”

They detour to Adora’s room just long enough for her to grab a coat and her wallet. Catra takes the opportunity to text Scorpia an update.

Adora takes her to a diner in the upscale shopping district near Bright Moon she’s only ever passed through. The place is, thankfully, less hipster chic than the other places surrounding it, if a little bit trying-too-hard rustic to be entirely comfortable. But the food is good and the conversation flows easily and the longer they’re together the more Catra feels the pressure coiled around her heart all day start to unwind, replaced with a different kind of tension entirely.

Adora doesn’t even blush when Catra catches her staring anymore, seems to be angling to be caught now, actually. By the time they leave the restaurant, Adora’s hand brushing deliberately against hers as they walk side by side, Catra’s heart is pounding in her ears.

“I’ll walk you home,” Adora offers.

“Not yet,” Catra says.

The park is dark by the time they arrive, the last bit of sun just a pink streak on the horizon. The only people Catra can see are far off, distant shapes running around under the harsh white light of the fenced in tennis courts. They’re all alone, aside from the ducks milling in the pond who don’t seem to care about them at all.

It’s cold out, now, but pleasantly so. Catra breathes and watches the steam rise from her lips and doesn’t try to stifle her laugh when Adora does the same.

Catra feels impossibly light, joking with Adora in the dark. The tension that has been building all night still lingers, but it’s settled now, familiar and exciting instead of heavy. They laugh like children, chasing each other in the dark, scrambling around the playground until their fingers are numb from the cold metal.

Catra trips Adora in the sand, laughs and dodges Adora’s attempts to drag her down. She takes off, leading them across the field, toward the big tree in the center of the park, with the roots that burst up in tangles from the ground, and lets herself be caught.

Adora runs into her with more force than either of them expected, and it nearly sends them tumbling until Adora catches them both, pure strength and fast reflexes steadying them before they hit the ground.

They’re close, breathing hard, still laughing and it’s so easy to tilt her head up and catch Adora’s next breath in her mouth.

Adora seems less surprised than she had been by the kiss the other night, which makes sense. It feels like they’ve both been waiting the whole night for this. There’s no hint of hesitation in the way she wraps her arms around Catra’s shoulders and pulls her in closer, closer, just that same guileless optimism, that steady surety from the baseball field earlier.

It is a long, slow kiss and it builds like a well tended campfire fire, brighter and warmer with every passing second. Adora pulls back just a bit, to brush hair out of Catra’s face, to lean in and drag her lips down Catra’s cheeks, her chin, the edge of her mouth, brushing their noses together before claiming her lips again, even slower and gentler than before.

The distant honk of a goose sends them into a fit of giggles it’s impossible to keep kissing through, though Catra can’t help but try. The more they laugh, the harder it is to recapture the intensity of the moment, but somehow it feels just as good like this, slumped against each other and giddy, carefree in the dark, missing Adora’s mouth with her own but still trying and trying again.

“What was that?” Adora asks, finally, twining their fingers together.

“If you couldn’t tell I’m not sure we were doing it right,” Catra tries to joke, but can’t quite keep the strain out of her voice.

“Catra,” Adora admonishes, but she’s smiling. “What did it mean? Do you—?”

“It meant I wanted to kiss you,” she cuts in, knowing it’s not what Adora was hoping to hear. Catra leans forward, presses another quick kiss to the side of Adora’s mouth to soften the blow.

Adora still frowns and Catra’s heart seizes. “Oh.”

Catra tries again, slipping her arms around Adora’s neck and leaning up on her toes and kisses her slow and thoroughly, not stopping until the tension in Adora’s shoulders fades.

She lets Adora walk her home after that, fights back the urge to invite her up to the room. It’s way too soon for… _that_ , and as much as she feels like she and Adora are probably on the same page, it would be way too embarrassing to be misunderstood after tonight. Even without that potentially awkward pitfall, it would be a monumentally dumb idea to sneak her into the Academy on a Thursday night. None of that changes how part of Catra deflates at the notion of letting Adora go, of putting an end to the strange easiness of the night.

But she sends her off with one last, long slow kiss on the sidewalk.

She lies in bed after, staring up at the ceiling, heart still pounding in her chest and it’s not until after she gets a ‘home safe’ text from Adora that she can finally try to clear her head and relax into sleep.

X.x.x

Weaver drags her out of bed just before five in the morning, tells her she has an hour to clean the kitchen before cafeteria staff shows up to start working on breakfast.

It’s a two hour job on a good day, with a few people to split the work with. It’s three or four hours easily the way Weaver wants her to do it: thorough, on her hands and knees, running on only a handful of hours of sleep.

The impossibility of the task, absurdly, almost makes Catra want to cry. It’s a ridiculous impulse and one she shoves down violently, chalks up to the weirdly emotional few days she’s had with Adora lately and an overall lack of sleep.

The last time Weaver had seen Catra cry had been years ago now, when she’d cut her hand open on the broken edge of a garden trowel in eighth grade. It had been deep, the kind of wound where the pain is almost secondary to the horror of it. It had been the shock and the blood and the sickening glimpse of white tissue that had sent her into a panic. The tears had started without her even realizing it, an afterthought to the gulping, chest-wracking hiccuping breaths that seized her lungs.

She’d ended up needing stitches to close the wound. Weaver had suspended her punishment on doctor’s orders, though only barely. Catra had been back to the gardens as soon as the stitches came out.

So, that’s where the bar is now. She’s not about to break a four year streak by having a melt down over anything less than an amputation or maybe visible bone. Definitely not for a bit of light sleep deprivation paired with some chores and Weaver’s uninspired head games.

It takes her nearly forty minutes to finish the deep clean of just the space in front of the stoves, cleaner soaking through tears in the gloves Weaver won’t let her change (“Stop making excuses and just get the job done, you’d have more success if you weren’t always _whining_.”), stinging the skin of her palms and the skin around her cuticles. She’s about to move on when Weaver walks over to inspect her work, leaning down for a closer view and tipping her mug to the side in the process. Coffee sloshes over the side, dripping all over the stovetop Catra had just scrubbed down.

That hot, stinging pressure behind her eyes comes back, but this time it’s not even hopelessness, it’s just a wave of hatred so potent it makes her face flush and her heart pound in her chest.

Weaver doesn’t even pretend to apologize, just tuts over the fact that she couldn’t accomplish the simple task of cleaning the kitchen in the generous hour she’d been allotted. “You’ll have to continue through the week, it seems.”

Catra wants to scream. She wants to yank the coffee out of Weaver’s hands, splash it in her stupid smug face, tear down all the pots and pans and make a vicious racket, break every light bulb, set the whole damn place on fire.

Instead she does something almost as stupid and asks, “So, is it the power trip specifically or just being a bitch in general that you get off on?”

Weaver just smiles, with teeth this time, and it’s absolutely horrible. “Two weeks.”

Catra can’t hold back her frustrated sigh at the increased punishment, but manages not to say anything in response.

“You know, it’s really a shame,” Weaver opines. “You’ve been here since you were just a child. And the entire time, the Academy has tried, _I have tried,_ to instill in you work ethic, self restraint, good values. And none of it has taken. I hold out my hand, I try to pull you up above yourself, and I am scorned.

“I try to _drag_ you higher for your own good, and I am mocked. You are as much of an out of control, impulsive, idiotic disappointment today as you were when you were first enrolled. No amount of my guidance has made even the slightest difference. You are well and truly hopeless. And so smug about it. It’s almost perversely impressive, the sheer spitefulness to which you cling to failure. It’s a miracle you didn’t succeed in dragging Adora down with you before she finally smartened up and got away.”

It’s nothing new. It shouldn’t hurt, it’s bullshit, it _shouldn’t hurt_ but Catra can’t stop herself from biting down hard on her lip to try not to slip, to not let her face betray the way the stupid villain monologue tears straight through her. She dips her head low, focuses on mechanically sopping up the spilled coffee, and tries to brace herself on the stove to keep the trembling of her body from being too obvious.

“I’m going to be eighteen next month,” Catra manages quietly, when Weaver finally escorts her from the room so the kitchen staff can begin their work. She feels small and pathetic and so angry, she doesn’t think she can live with herself if she just lets the morning end having _taken_ Weaver’s insults without speaking up at all. “I won’t have to be here. You won’t control me.”

“By all means,” Weaver drawls, sounding hopelessly bored. “Add homeless high school dropout with no prospects to your list of great achievements. I’ll happily walk you down to the office myself to file your withdrawal.”

And that’s all there is to say, isn’t it?

Because they both know she won’t do it. There’s nowhere for her to go. There’s no family to take her in, no schools vying for her enrollment, no rich friends from the nice side of town to help her out.

Catra slinks back to her room, pulls on a clean uniform, and lays face down in her bed so she can scream into the pillow.

X.x.x

Catra makes it through a half day’s worth of classes before feeling so trapped in her own skin she thinks she might claw her way out of it.

It seems less of a scene to slip away between periods, sneaking off campus without running into any staff who’d try to stop her. Distance from the academy only compounds the restlessness she’d been trying to shake as it becomes more and more apparent that Weaver was right: she really doesn’t have anywhere to go.

It’s not much of a surprise that she ends up back at the quarry — it’s a place made for people who have nowhere better to go. It’s the first time she’s been during the day in years and it’s a dozen times more depressing in the sunlight, without long shadows to smooth out the cracks and scattered crowds of drunk partiers milling about to liven the place up.

She’s not totally alone, of course. There’s a handful of people she recognizes perched on the rusted out wreck of some old car, sharing a pack of cigarettes. She drifts her way over to them, misery loving company, and joins in the pathetic social ritual of chain smoking and talking shit alone at a deserted party spot in the middle of the day.

Eventually, even the nicotine boost isn’t enough to make it worth it to stick close. The crowd are just a few years older than her, total burnouts with no ambition, no real lives, drifting along through life working jobs they hate for hardly enough money to scrape by, smoking in huddled circles at the abandoned quarry on their off hours just for somewhere to be.

It feels like a depressingly real glimpse into her future that she doesn’t need right now. It feels like proof, bolded and underlined, of everything Weaver had read in her this morning.

She wanders to the lip of the quarry, gazing down into its impossibly blue depths. The water is so still, so serene, but she knows it’s just because nothing can live down there. Somewhere under the surface lies a graveyard of old mining equipment, empty beer cans, and, if the rumors about the place are to believed, at least a few actual dead bodies.

She’s seen someone run off the side of the cliff on a dare, once. It’s a long drop to the bottom, but he’d survived the fall, had managed swimming to his friends at the shore without getting impaled on something, even in the dark.

It’s daylight now, and she’s smaller than that kid had been. Her odds are probably better than his were, no matter that she hates swimming, no matter that it’s a stupid risk, no matter that she doesn’t have friends waiting on the shore to drag her back onto dry land, to go after her if something went wrong.

She’s testing herself without much thought as to why, inching the edge of her shoe out contemplatively over the edge of the cliff when her phone buzzes in her pocket, disrupting the idle fantasy of a weightlessness that’s close enough to freedom, to flying.

There’s a few messages she’s ignored, Lonnie asking about Economics homework, Scorpia wanting to know if she should grab a tray for Catra at lunch, but the new notification is from Adora, who asks if she’s busy tonight.

Catra flexes her grip around the phone, casts another quick glance over her shoulder at the hypnotic blue of the quarry before replying.

No, not tonight.

X.x.x

It’s a party and she’s gonna have fun.

It’s a _Bright Moon_ party and she’s not gonna let that stop her.

It’s a _Bright Moon_ party with Adora and her entire entourage and Catra’s _trying._

Or, well. She’s _trying_ to try but it’s easier said than done.

Adora’s had her arm draped across Catra’s shoulders all night, shooting encouraging glances at her every thirty seconds like clockwork, making such a tremendously obvious effort to include her in every group conversation that it’s almost suffocating. There’s this itch at the back of Catra’s mind, this thing pressing down on her heart, her throat, that wants to stop pretending to ignore the suspicious glares Glimmer’s been shooting her all night, that makes her want to shrug off Adora’s arm around her and just _leave_ before the tension simmering all night has a chance to boil over into abject failure.

She has been doing her best to quiet this thing with alcohol. Mostly, it’s been working, the pleasant buzz she’s cultivated dulling the knife’s edge of anxiety that’s been digging into her since this morning and, at least for now, she’s still here. Still trying to do this.

Adora’s stone cold sober, per usual. Even at the Academy, even at the Quarry, with less of a reputation to keep up, without the squeaky clean behavioral record that her sports scholarship demands, Catra’s never seen Adora indulge beyond half-heartedly nursing a clumsily assembled mixed drink for an entire night and tonight she hasn’t even done that. Not even _soda_. She’s been working her way through a giant water bottle, the kind with the fancy rigid plastic from the side of the gas station coolers that Catra doesn’t even waste her time walking by because they’re so ridiculously overpriced.

Catra’s presence has drawn a mixed reaction from Adora’s friends. Bow seems to have taken Adora’s lead, offering her aggressive, awkward friendliness with no apparent regard for his dignity or her lack of enthusiasm. Perfuma and Mermista have responded by ignoring her except when Adora’s pointed prompting forces one of them to politely acknowledge her. By comparison, Glimmer’s naked distaste is actually kind of a refreshing change of pace.

Despite Adora and Bow’s clumsy best efforts, the conversation has remained steadfastly insular all night; topics ranging from which upcoming school events were going to be the most epic, which teachers were probably hooking up off campus, and more inane but excruciatingly benign gossip about classmates Catra had never met or heard of.

Adora’s arm around her, which had buoyed Catra upon arrival, now feeks embarrassingly obvious. A big flashing sign advertising Adora’s compulsive need to please, to fix every little problem in real time, with Catra’s status as The Problem of the Night highlighted in hideous neon.

So, it’s actually a relief when some mustachioed weirdo bustles his way through the crowd and challenges Mermista to a round of beer pong, even if it is baffling that when she accepts, it’s Adora excitedly rising from the couch, finally withdrawing her arm from Catra’s shoulders.

“Same rules as last time?” Adora’s whole demeanor shifts, suddenly full of cocky swagger. It’s a level of confidence Catra hasn’t seen on her since the last Horde Academy home game Adora had played at, before she’d revealed she was leaving. She tries not to think about what it means that this is a side of Adora that, before this moment, could only exist when Catra wasn’t around.

“You’re on!” Freddie Mercury Lite says and tears off into another room.

Adora bounces excitedly in place, practically vibrating, before turning back and offering Catra a hand up off the couch.

“I thought you weren’t drinking,” Catra says.

“I’m not, but Mermista and I have a deal,” Adora says, lingering behind with Catra as the rest of her friends file after the mustache guy. “I’m her stand-in for any party-related challenges and in exchange she tutors me in Biology. She’ll still do all the drinking when Sea Hawk scores.”

“Alright,” Catra says because the entire arrangement sounds stupid as _hell_ but here she is, _trying_ , and that seems like it should include not blurting out every harsh thing she thinks about Adora’s new friends and what they do together.

“I don’t even really need that much help with Biology and even if I did I think she’d do it anyway,” Adora continues. “Really, I’m just here for the love of the pong.”

Someone has cleared off a very long, very expensive looking wooden dining table and set up an array of bright red solo cups on either side. Adora takes her place at one end with her friends crowding off to the side to cheer her on.

Catra hovers at the fringes, near the doorway and watches boredly while Adora and Sea Hawk bicker over rules until Glimmer appoints herself referee. The game finally begins, Sea Hawk’s first toss going wide and eliciting a roomful of jeers. Adora’s follow-up is predictably precise, arcing gracefully through the air and landing in one of Sea Hawk’s cups with a gentle thunk.

Adora’s arms fly into the air in triumph as Sea Hawk drinks, her friends cheering enthusiastically. Adora turns in place, catches Catra’s eye and beckons her forward. She shrugs out of her jacket, baring her arms to the room.

Adora shuffles over to her, drapes the jacket off Catra’s shoulders and squeezes her biceps, leaning in to pop a quick kiss to the swell of Catra’s cheek before turning back to her game. Catra tries not to blush under the sudden attention that Adora’s called to her, but it doesn’t take long for everyone to return their attention to the game. Adora and Sea Hawk are boisterous competitors, which makes it easy for Catra to slip away after a few moments.

It feels like there’s more room to breathe, away from the crowded dining room. Catra wanders through the house until she ends up outside. The backyard is massive, a comfortable furnished patio sprawling out towards a massive pool, glowing blue in the darkness.

Catra deftly navigates around the sparse outdoor crowd, grabbing a long necked bottle of beer out of a cooler on her way, and slips around the side of the house to crouch behind some plastic trash bins. The world feels smaller out here, in the cold and dark. Catra leans back into the house, a little disappointed that Adora’s thick jacket shields her from the rough scratch of stucco.

The stolen beer eases the remaining prickly, claustrophobic feeling that fresh air and quiet wasn’t quite enough to banish. In fact, it works so well she slips out from her hiding place and creeps back to pull another from the cooler. The generous buzz she’d already worked up is at its tipping point, beginning a slow, clumsy slide into real inebriation but it’s a trade off Catra’s willing to make. She smokes two cigarettes in a row and finishes the second beer before forcing herself to her feet to rejoin the party, wobbling only a little when she pushes off against the wall.

Adora and Sea Hawk are still playing when Catra makes her way back into the house, though either it’s the slowest game of beer pong in the history of mankind or they’ve started a new one. Adora’s face is flushed bright red with the thrill of competition, her long blonde hair sticking to her temples and neck with sweat, bare arms flexing impressively as she bounces in place, waiting for Sea Hawk’s next throw.

He makes it. Half the room groans, Mermista steps up to dutifully drain the cup, pausing on her way to squeeze Adora’s bicep and leaning up to whisper something into her ear. Adora’s face breaks into a wide grin and she throws her head back laughing, the sound twisting the corner of Mermista’s mouth into a smug smirk.

Something hot and uncomfortable rolls over in Catra’s stomach.

The game continues, but Catra’s focus is on the crowd now, not the action.

Adora’s in the center, shining bright like a beacon, comfortable in the crowd in a way she never quite was at the Academy. She’s confident, carefree, spine straight, smile easy and sincere, pulsing upbeat energy that seems to ripple through the room.

Adora had always been well-liked at the Academy, though she’d never seemed quite comfortable with it, awkwardly stumbling away from any attention that wasn’t to do with her sports performances. Catra had privately always assumed that Adora’s slight discomfort as the center of attention was simply a bit of shyness mixed with a preference for Catra’s company in particular. A mirror to Catra’s general disinterest in her peers, her own desire to save her time and energy for Adora alone. It had been a flattering thing to think.

And clearly a false, pathetic projection, if Adora’s performance tonight is anything to go by. She mugs for the crowd, playfully talks trash to a chorus of delighted ‘ooh’s and flexes goofily to rile up her fans.

And they’re all eating it up.

There’s at least a half dozen girls packed into the room that are staring keenly, openly at Adora as she works the crowd.

Girls with good families, Catra knows. Girls with money. 

Girls with futures.

Girls that could stand an evening out with Adora’s friends without having to get wasted to deal. Girls that go to Bright Moon Prep, girls that see Adora every day, girls that don’t bring years of painful, complicated history along with them.

Girls that wouldn’t hesitate for even a moment if they knew Adora wanted something real, something more than a few fumbled kisses in the dark. Girls that knew how to keep good things alive, how to keep good people close.

Girls that couldn’t ever be as good at hurting Adora as she was.

That sick feeling in her stomach intensifies and she wishes she’d drank less.

Water. She needs some water.

Catra wanders off again, toward the kitchen and fumbles through the cabinets above the sink until she finds a glass she fills from the faucet and downs in two gulps. It doesn’t do much to settle the churning in her stomach or loosen the tension gripping her spine, but it’s something else to focus on besides the feeling of swaying on a cliff again.

“Hey, there you are,” Adora’s voice over her shoulder startles Catra so badly that she jumps, the glass slipping out of her clumsy fingers and clattering loudly into the sink. She winces as she notices the spiderweb of cracks spreading out from the lip of the glass. “Sorry. You okay?”

“Yeah,” Catra nods, chewing her lip and glancing around Adora. “Where’s your crew?”

“What, you’re not even gonna ask if I won?” Adora pouts, and she’s joking but it sends a spike of anxiety lancing through Catra all the same. She’s fucking this up.

“Of course you won,” she tries to recover, keeping her voice cool and putting a practiced eyebrow quirk behind the sentiment. “Like you’d ever let a chump like that beat you at anything.”

It’s a good save. Adora grins brightly and shuffles a little closer, pretending to straighten the collar of the borrowed jacket Catra’s still wearing. “You look good in my jacket.”

“I’d look better out of it,” Catra blurts before she can stop herself, gratified when a bright flush sweeps up Adora’s neck. She doesn’t pull her hands away so Catra leans in closer. “Can we go somewhere quieter? The crowd’s giving me a headache.”

Adora chews her lip, looks for a terrible moment like she might say no, but then she nods, reaching for Catra’s hand and leading her through the house.

“This is Perfuma’s place, actually,” Adora says, letting them into a room at the end of the upstairs hallway. “So I kind of know where things are.”

Catra half expected a bedroom, but she’s a little relieved that Adora brought them into what appears to be a study instead. There are bookshelves built into the walls, stretching all the way up to the ceiling, all glossy, burnished wood. It looks like something out of a storybook or one of those reality shows about rich housewives.

“I’m _pretty sure_ Perfuma wanted to keep everyone on the first floor, really, but I don’t think she’d really mind us being up here,” Adora keeps babbling, visibly nervous now as she wanders over to a freestanding antique globe in the corner and spins it absently. “I mean, it’s not like we’re gonna tear the place up just the two of us or anything.”

Adora trails off, a sheepish pinch to her mouth that lets Catra know she finally realized how awkward she was being. Catra takes the opportunity to grab Adora by the arm and pull her over to the big, overstuffed armchair in the corner, shoving her down onto it and climbing into Adora’s lap before either of them has time to object.

Kissing Adora is starting to feel familiar now. It’s still new, still a little startling whenever she pauses to think about it, but they’re developing a rhythm, a kind of instinct for how to move against each other that’s comforting and exhilarating all at once.

Adora settles her hands on Catra’s hips, under the edge of the jacket but over Catra’s shirt, and punctuates their kisses with gentle flexes of her hands, little sweeping circles of her thumb. It’s nice, surprisingly tender, and it makes Catra want to get closer, leaning her body further into Adora’s.

They break apart after a moment, Adora’s head falling back against the chair and Catra seizing the opportunity to trail her lips along the edge of Adora’s jaw, up toward her ear. She runs the edge of her teeth along Adora’s earlobe, delights in how she shivers, and follows up by taking it between her teeth and tugging gently, experimentally.

Adora makes a soft noise in the back of her throat and Catra grins around the flesh and tugs again, is rewarded again, and can’t help but laugh.

“So, Perfuma brought you up here, huh?” Catra doesn’t know where the words came from, just that even the distraction of Adora’s skin under her lips wasn’t enough to stop them tumbling out.

She feels Adora tense under her and fights to keep her own body from doing the same.

“Yeah,” Adora answers slowly, still a little breathless. She squeezes Catra’s hips and pulls back a little, angling her head so she can catch Catra’s eyes.

Suddenly, Catra can’t bear being looked at. She ducks her head and catches Adora’s mouth in another kiss, just to escape that searching gaze.

“Do you guys hang out a lot?” Catra can’t help but ask, thinking about them here in the study, like this. Both of them with their long, blonde hair, tall and beautiful. Perfuma’s willowy frame in stark contrast to Adora’s bulkier, more muscular build. They’d look good together. They seemed to have a warm, comfortable dynamic, entertaining each other easily downstairs, talking about nerd shit like student government and fundraisers while Catra drank in silence and pretended to follow along.

“Yeah,” Adora says, frowning lightly now. “I mean, she’s one of my best friends at Bright Moon. What are you getting at?”

“Did she help you with your makeup?” Catra asks, and wishes she could stop. _Out of control, impulsive, idiotic_ echoes through her head and it’s exactly how she feels. That spiteful, weak, nasty part of her is driving the conversation now, about to steer them both off a cliff and for no reason other than things had been kind of going okay and Catra’s never been allowed to let something good exist for too long. “Or was that Glimmer?”

“They both helped,” Adora answers, pulling away when Catra tries to drag her into another kiss. Her hands stay on Catra’s hips, at least. She hasn’t pushed her away yet. “Sometimes Mermista too, if she’s around.”

“And your clothes?” Catra asks, flicking her gaze down Adora’s body, following the path of her eyes with her palms as she smooths them down Adora’s tank top to the skirt she’s sporting tonight, a far cry from the baggy jeans and shorts she’d favored at the Academy. “Did they buy them for you too?”

“I bought them,” Adora’s voice has a hard edge now, a warning.

“But they took you shopping, right?” Catra presses, and that’s it.

“What is this about?” Adora asks, grabbing Catra’s wrists and pulling her hands off of Adora’s body and up into the space between them. “Say what you mean.”

“You know you’re not doing much to challenge the dumb jock stereotype as long as you insist on having every little thing spelled out for you all the time.”

“ _Catra_ ,” Adora snaps, finally breaking into a venomous glower. “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _you_?” Catra volleys back, yanking her hands out of Adora’s grasp and curling them into fists at her sides. “C’mon, Adora. The hair, the makeup, the clothes. Your whole little squad down there. Who exactly are you trying to be here?”

“Get off me,” Adora demands, pushing until Catra has no choice but to scramble out of her lap or fall to the floor. “So, what did I fuck up tonight, exactly? I don’t look how you want me to? I _what_? Went out and made friends after you kicked me to the curb?”

“So I’m just supposed to pretend like I never noticed that the minute you left you became a whole new person? Like I’m not totally weirded out that you ditched me and then immediately let your new gaggle of groupies give you a pretty pretty princess makeover?”

“They’re my _friends_ and I—”

“Oh yeah,” Catra drawls, pleased she can keep her voice level still even though Adora’s starting to shout. “ _All_ my friends wanna jump my bones too.”

“I can’t _believe_ this,” Adora hisses. “You’re really having a meltdown _for no reason_. You’re so jealous and paranoid you decided that my friends all want to— want to—”

“Oh _please_ , Adora,” Catra sighs. “I don’t have to make anything up. I’ve been watching them watch you all night and you may not be a _genius_ or anything, but you’re not that fucking dumb. You have to see it too. You know what they want.”

Adora jerks back like she’s been slapped and that’s how Catra knows that the work is done. The thing they’d been growing between them is well and truly broken, snapped apart into pieces under Catra’s own hands.

“Stop,” Adora says and for once Catra brings herself to listen. Adora’s whole body is wound tight, shoulders straight, jaw clenched hard. When she speaks it’s slow, careful, but there’s heat behind every syllable, enough to burn straight through Catra. “You don’t get to call me stupid and then act like the only reason anyone wants to be friends with me is because they’re attracted to me.” 

An apology sits on the tip of Catra’s tongue, oily and sickening, but she swallows it down, forces herself quiet.

“I really thought we were getting somewhere,” Adora laughs, but it sounds like glass shattering. She drags a hand down her face, pushes sweaty hair back from her forehead. Her lips are still swollen from the force of Catra’s kisses and Catra aches, _aches_ at the sight. “Did you actually want to be with me at any point or did you really just do all this to keep someone else from having me?”

“What?”

“You _kiss_ me and then you tell me you don’t want to be my girlfriend and then you freak out and have a possessive meltdown over _what_ exactly? I’ve visited my friend’s house before?”

It’s an opportunity to walk things back. Adora looks pissed, sure, but there’s a pleading edge to her voice too.

She’s good. Too good for this. Desperate even after everything Catra’s already done to ruin things for them for an excuse to fix this, to forgive her.

But what’s the point when it’s only a matter of time before she realizes Catra’s right, that she has options, that there are a dozen girls just on the other side of the door right now that have more to offer her right now than Catra could ever dream of?

And even if somehow Catra dupes her long enough to keep them together until graduation that doesn’t change the fact that in a year Adora will be enrolled at her dream college somewhere while Catra will be lucky not to be homeless or dead.

“I’ve gotta go,” Catra manages, though it’s hard to push the words past the lump in her throat. She feels suddenly totally drained, ashamed and small and pathetic and she can’t stand another moment of Adora _looking at her_ like that.

She turns on her heel and stumbles out the door, back down the hallway, the stairs, out of the house and into the night.

Adora doesn’t follow.

X.x.x

It takes until the next morning when Catra wakes up for how badly she’d fucked up to really hit her.

The panic and despair slam into her like a freight train mere moments after she wakes up, and before she knows it she’s curled into herself under the sheets, heaving her way through the worst anxiety attack she’s had since the morning after Adora had actually left.

It’s agony and it feels endless, but it’s not. Somehow the pressure in her chest doesn’t actually stop her heart, doesn’t actually collapse her lungs, and when it finally subsides it’s miserable and anticlimactic and it leaves her feeling like her skull’s been scooped clean with a melon baller.

She slips into… something. Not quite a sleep, but a kind of desolate blank-mindedness that stretches until a sharp knock at her door snaps her out of it.

Weaver, here to collect her for another turn at janitorial duty. On another morning, Catra might have protested, nothing Weaver had said last week implied Catra’s punishment would continue through the weekend, but today she goes quietly.

The lack of protest is clearly not what Weaver had been expecting, if the slight downward quirk of her mouth is anything to go by. Catra wonders if she’s disappointed that Catra hadn’t mouthed off like usual and given her another chance to tack on more detention.

It’s cleaning showers today, which proves to be exhausting, disgusting, slightly traumatizing work. The bleach fumes leave her with a splitting headache, and by the time she’s done her thighs and arms feel like jelly from the awkward hunched position she’s held for hours.

Weaver releases her just before lunch time but she’s feeling too sick and dizzy to make the trip down to the cafeteria. She heads back to her room instead, alternates between staring at the jacket she’d accidentally stolen from Adora draped over the back of her chair and down at the phone in her hand with no new messages.

She eats later when Scorpia, tired of being ignored, shows up at her door with a sandwich, but the thirty second exchange is the most social interaction she can stomach for the evening and she spends the rest of the night alone.

Adora doesn’t text or call.

Catra thinks about reaching out first. She frustratedly types and deletes at least a dozen drafts of texts, but nothing she can think to say seems _right._

Sunday’s nearly the same. Weaver has her clean toilets instead of showers, she manages two meals and thirty minutes of face time with Scorpia and Lonnie, before drifting back up to her room to wait for messages that never arrive.

On Monday, Adora finally breaks the silence.

 _Can I come pick my jacket up?_ Isn’t the most encouraging opener Catra could have daydreamed, but it’s something. And at this point, as pathetic as she knows it is, Catra will take anything.

The rest of Catra’s day passes in a haze until she’s pacing around outside the Bright Moon gates, Adora’s jacket clutched to her chest like it could blow away on the wind if she’s not careful.

Adora doesn’t keep her waiting long. When she slips out from the gate her hair is damp and she smells like soap, and it reminds Catra so viscerally of the day last week that had been so much like this, except not already ruined. Her fear then had been tinged with excitement, a flicker of hope growing in her belly that she’d long since stomped out.

Adora looks about as bad as Catra feels, all wan and bleary-eyed. “Thanks,” she mumbles, tentatively pulling the jacket from Catra’s outstretched hands. She chews her lip there on the sidewalk, looking over Catra’s shoulder for a long moment before nodding to herself. “Wanna go for a walk?”

They don’t talk. Adora stays quiet and Catra can’t figure out what to say to make things better, so she keeps her mouth shut too. They drift to a stop in the parking lot of the old shut down grocery store. Catra remembers walking down here when she and Adora were just kids, pockets jingling with quarters they’d saved to buy ice cream cones.They’d only be able to afford one, too impatient to save up for seperate cones. Catra always wanted her scoop to be a different flavor, with wildly varying results. Adora was steady, strawberry every time. Catra used to tease her for being boring, but secretly she liked the predictability, the knowledge that even if Catra’s experiment with pina colada or pistachio failed that week, Adora would share her scoop all the same.

They settle on worn out plastic tables a few feet down from the doors, where worn out clerks used to smoke and eat lunch on their breaks. Catra looks down at the other end of the store, where the carts used to be put up and remembers late summer evenings, taking turns pushing each other around through the parking lot until store attendants ran them off.

Adora’s face is unreadable in the half-light. Catra wonders if she brought them here on purpose, if this is where they’d finally bury the thing that had almost happened between them until she’d burned it all down the other night.

There’d be a certain symbolism in it, Catra thinks, kicking her legs and looking at the graffiti-covered wooden boards blocking up the windows.

Adora still hasn’t said anything and Catra’s getting antsy, the dread piling up to tickle the back of her throat. She wants a cigarette. Maybe Adora’s still figuring out how to do this, but Catra’s never been patient and it’s officially way too late to start building the kinds of skills that could have prevented this mess in the first place, so she dives in. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Adora jumps a little, startled, like she’d forgotten Catra was even there. She frowns when Catra’s words hit her, cants her head off to the side, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

It’s a new one, as far as nervous gestures go. She’d always kept her hair pulled back in a ponytail, used to fidget by twirling the ends of her hair instead. Part of Catra still misses the ponytail, misses the familiarity of it, but she thinks that if they’d have been able to last longer she could have gotten used to tucking Adora’s hair back for her. Could have learned how to do it and let her fingers drag just lightly over the skin of Adora’s cheeks without seeming like she was trying to.

“What are you sorry for?” Adora asks, finally, voice quiet.

Catra was certain Adora would say something more along the lines of ‘I know, but that’s not enough’ and then launch into her ‘it’s really over’ speech from there. The unexpected question throws her for a moment.

“I freaked out on you. I had a bad day and I took a bunch of shit out on you. I, uh, I didn’t try very hard with your friends. Should I go on?”

“Are you actually sorry for all that or are you just saying what you think I expect you to?” It’s not even accusatory, just genuine and somehow that makes Catra feel worse, knowing Adora really can’t read her intentions.

Worse still, a small part of Catra’s not sure what the answer is either.

“I shouldn’t have called you dumb,” Catra says, because it had been the kind of low blow she’d always been able to stop herself from throwing at Adora. Catra’s been mean, she’s been cruel, she’s hurt people on purpose but never Adora. Not like that. “You’re like, one of the smartest people I know. And you work really hard for it. I only said that to get under your skin, it wasn’t fair.”

“Because you were having a bad day?” Adora parrots back. “Because instead of talking to me about that you decided you’d rather have a punching bag?”

Catra flinches, feels like her stomach is falling through the floor. “I… I didn’t mean for it to be like that.”

“It was though,” Adora reminds her and sniffs hard and _god_ , Catra made her _cry._ “After you left I spent the rest of the night alternating between being _so mad_ at you and beating myself up because I hadn’t noticed how off you’d been. Because I didn’t see that and help you. Because I brought you to the stupid party and I thought you were just drinking because that’s what you _do_ and I didn’t want to seem like a buzzkill by asking you to slow down, or checking if you were alright. Because I keep fucking things up with you without even trying, without even knowing how I’m doing it.”

“Adora—”

“But I _thought_ about it, after,” Adora keeps going, like Catra never tried to interrupt. “And that wasn’t my fault, this weekend. It wasn’t my fault that you didn’t talk to me about whatever it is was bothering you, or that you didn’t ask to do something else. It wasn’t my fault you were rude to my friends, or that you said all that stuff to hurt me.”

It’s so hard to _breathe_ but Catra just nods, digs her nails into the palms of her hands and waits.

“I’m _sick_ of feeling like the bad guy all the time, Catra. I’m sick of feeling like the villain in your life, like everything that’s hard for you is my fault. I spent months agonizing over it, how you were hurt and it was my fault and you wouldn’t let me help. I kept thinking that if I ever got another chance with you, I’d do whatever it takes. I’d take whatever you could dish out and I’d just love you through it until you felt better and we could get over it.”

“That’s not what I want,” Catra blurts out, unable to bite her lip any longer. Adora has to know. Adora has to know that Catra might have been weak and vindictive and she might have lashed out but she’d _never_ wanted a free pass to hurt Adora. “I’m sorry, Adora, I’m so sorry if that’s what you thought I wanted. It’s not, it’s not. I don’t—”

“I don’t want that either,” Adora says, voice stronger than it had been before and Catra feels the conversation shift again beneath their feet. “What do you want, Catra?”

“I…” Catra trails off. She doesn’t know what to say, how to answer.

“You didn’t want to be my girlfriend,” Adora points out, picking at a hole in the knee of her jeans. “I told you I could wait. That didn’t stop you from flipping out at me over nothing.”

Catra winces. “I know. I’m sor—”

“You’re sorry, we’ve established that,” Adora’s voice is harsh now, her shoulders squared. “You still haven’t answered.”

“Why does it matter?” Catra laughs bitterly, hopping off the table to prowl restlessly along the curbside. “This is _me_ we’re talking about. I never get what I want.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, she knows that immediately. Adora nods once, a sharp little jerk of her chin, and then slides off the table, starts stalking away. Catra sees her going and panics, calls out for her, reaches but stops herself in time to not grab at Adora’s arm as she goes.

“Tell me what you want,” Adora says, voice low so Catra has to lean in and strain to hear. “Or there’s no point in any of this.”

 _Well and truly hopeless_ cracks like thunder through her skull, but Catra swallows hard past the pain.

She never gets what she wants. And Weaver’s probably right, it’s probably her own fault for never making herself better, never making herself worthy of the good things other people deserved.

Maybe the years she already had with Adora were some cosmic accounting fuckup and everything that’s happened since is some kind of karmic debt collection.

Maybe there’s no way to get this right.

But Adora _asked_ and it’s dawning on Catra with alarming clarity that this might be the last thing Adora ever asks her for and she can’t, won’t, say no just to save face this time.

“I want you to _be with me_ ,” Catra says, wincing as her voice cracks. She feels her face flush, but keeps going, determined to save her embarrassment for later. “I want you to stay. I want us to stop hurting each other. I want it to be how it used to.”

Adora looks exhausted when she scrapes a hand down her face and sighs into her palm. “It’s not ever going to be how it used to be. I don’t want it to be like that.”

Catra flinches, stunned by how deeply it cut to hear, even though she’d known that Adora couldn’t have felt any other way. “Oh.”

“Too much has changed,” Adora continues, softening her voice. “It hasn’t all been bad.”

Catra nods, feels tears stinging her eyes, bites hard on her lip as she tries to blink them back.

“You just said you wanted to be with me, but I’ve been _trying_ that with you, Catra, and you keep pushing me away. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Because you’re gonna leave anyway,” Catra snaps and if her voice shakes with tears Adora’s too polite to say anything. “If it’s not some girl at your school that’s better than me or easier to be with, it’ll be in the fall when you fuck off to your dream school and I’m stuck here.”

“Why aren’t you giving me a choice in this?” Adora shouts back, finally losing composure. “Stop acting like you know what I want, what I’m going to do.”

“What else would you do? _Everything_ in your life has been better since you left me. And everything for me has been worse. You’ll _never_ need me as much as I need you.”

“ _You_ don’t get to decide how much I need you.” Tension is radiating off Adora’s shoulders, jaw shut so tight Catra thinks if they both shut up for a minute they’d hear Adora’s teeth grinding. “I know it was hard on you when I left. And I’m sorry, I’ve told you that before, but I mean it. I’m really, really sorry for the ways it hurt you. But I’m not sorry I left. I’m not sorry for doing something that was good for me, I’m not sorry for growing, I’m not sorry for taking care of myself.”

“I hold you back,” Catra bites out, angrily scraping tears off her cheeks with the heel of her palm. _Out of control, impulsive, idiotic disappointment_ , she thinks and,i _t’s a miracle you didn’t succeed in dragging Adora down with you before she finally smartened up and got away._

“ _No_ ,” Adora steps closer, drops her palms on the balls of Catra’s shoulders. The touch scalds her through her clothes and she shudders, wanting to lean in but _needing_ to hold herself apart. “You make me better. You make me happier. But not when we’re doing this to each other.”

When Adora tugs, Catra’s resistance crumbles and she goes, burying her face in Adora’s neck and letting loose the sob coiled in her throat.

“I love you, Catra,” Adora breathes into her ear and Catra shudders again, sobs harder. “But I’m not as good at it as I thought I was. I need you to help me get better, because I can’t learn how to do it well if you don’t talk to me. If you don’t trust the things I say because you think I let you down too hard before, that’s one thing. But if you won’t give me a chance to prove it to you, then I don’t know what else to do. I need you to trust me. I need you to tell me what you want. I need you to listen, too. We both need to try.”

“I’m sorry,” Catra can’t help herself, she has to say it again. Adora doesn’t admonish her this time, so she repeats it again, mumbling into Adora’s shoulder, wet now with her tears. “I’m scared.”

“I’ll wait,” Adora says, squeezing Catra tighter against her chest. “If you need time to figure things out. I can wait for you.”

Catra nods, fights to get her breathing back under control, stem the tide of tears she’d been drowning under. She does it all from the cradle of Adora’s arms, feeling warm and exhausted and terrified and safe. “Don’t make me go home by myself,” she begs, fingers curling into Adora’s jacket sleeves, feeling raw and exposed and pathetic but desperate enough to let it show.

“I won’t,” Adora says, and presses a kiss to her temple, through a curtain of unruly hair. “I’ll stay as long as you want.”

X.x.x

Adora wakes her up before she leaves. It’s early, grey morning light snaking through the slats in the blinds, and there’s a sense of deja vu, for a moment the world is still and perfect, as full of possibility as it had been on the morning she’d woken up like this in Adora’s bed, the night after everything had changed.

This morning feels heavier, more solemn. Adora holds her tightly, one arm around her waist, the other curled upward around her shoulders, hand tangling in Catra’s hair. Their legs twine together under the sheets and Catra breathes steady into Adora’s chest, forehead pressed against Adora’s collar bone, stays as still as she can because maybe if she doesn’t move then time won’t either.

Then Adora’s alarm goes off again and she shifts to silence it. Adora drops a kiss to Catra’s forehead, squeezes her tight, whispers her apologies. “I have to get up.”

Catra’s slow to untangle herself and Adora is patient, both of them aware that things will become complicated again once they’ve shaken off the haze of sleep, the familiar comfort of closeness. 

Adora’s dressed and nearly ready to leave when a sharp knock breaks the silence of the room.

“Oh shit,” Catra hisses, hopping off the bed and shoving Adora unceremoniously towards her closet. Adora takes the hint, going quietly, though her eyes are flashing a dozen questions. Catra shakes her head, slipping into a discarded pair of pants she passes on the floor on her way back to the door.

“You’re late,” Weaver intones grimly from the hallway, leaning into the gap in Catra’s doorway.

“I slept through my alarm,” Catra lies. “Five minutes?”

Weaver looks her up and down, unimpressed. “Thirty seconds. Or your punishment doubles.”

Catra nods stiffly, shutting and locking the door in a single smooth motion. She dresses the rest of the way hurriedly, shaking her head as Adora peeks out from the closet door.

Weaver hums in annoyance when Catra joins her in the hallway, but doesn’t tack on extra time on cleaning crew. And she doesn’t seem to hear the thundering of Catra’s heart in her chest, despite it being probably the loudest sound Catra can imagine at that moment.

Small mercies.

Later, during the brief gap between the end of her janitorial shift and the beginning of her first class, she makes it back to her room and checks the new messages on her phone.

 _Ninja’d my way back to Bright Moon, no problem_.

Then,

_Call me tonight._

It’s late, by the time Catra gets around to it, but Adora answers on the second ring. Catra crouches next to her open windowsill, wishing for a cigarette but contenting herself with the cool breeze on her cheek and sound of Adora’s voice through the phone instead.

“What was that, this morning?” Adora asks.

Catra picks at her nails, wondering if Adora’s changed into pajamas yet or if she’s still in her Bright Moon uniform, sleeves rolled up, top buttons undone, rumpled after a long day with a bumpy start.

“She’s got me cleaning again,” Catra says after a beat, forcing her attention back to the conversation. She swallows hard, weirdly nervous for how Adora will react.

“What for?”

“Officially? Talking back.”

“Unofficially?” Adora prompts, voice tight like she might not want the answer.

But they’re trying honesty now, aren’t they?

“Unofficially she hates my fucking guts and gets a kick out of pushing me around,” Catra breathes, and as soon as the words are out in the air between them the haze of fear dissipates, burnt up by the anger in her belly, finally let loose. “It’s nothing new.”

“It’s not?” Adora asks, shaky.

“No,” Catra laughs, but it’s a brittle sound. A bead of blood wells up at the edge of her cuticle and she forces her palms flat against the windowsill, makes herself hold them there to stop picking. “No, it’s always been like this. It’s just… more, now.”

“More?”

“Worse,” Catra admits. “And more often.”

“Can you talk to anyone? A guidance counselor? Principal?”

“Adora.”

“What about your caseworker?” It’d be easier to get mad if Adora didn’t sound so freaked out, so desperate.

“No,” Catra says, fighting to keep her voice soft. 

“You said it’s always been…?”

“Yeah.”

“Even when I was there?” Adora’s voice is barely a whisper on the air, fragile, about to snap.

It almost makes Catra want to lie, to play it down, like she has been doing for years and years.

 _I need you to trust me_ , Adora had said. _We both need to try._

“Yeah, even when you were here,” Catra admits.

“Oh,” Adora says. And then, “Can you tell me about it?”

So Catra does.

X.x.x

“You look better today,” Lonnie says, quiet, just for Catra.

She blinks, glancing around at the rest of the table, where Entrapta is loudly extolling the virtues of the new Rasberry Pi line to a clearly clueless but thoroughly engrossed Scorpia. Kyle and Rogelio are, per usual, absorbed in their weird insular boyfriend bubble.

“Was that a compliment or a put-down?” Catra asks, unable to keep from squirming a little under Lonnie’s keen gaze.

“An observation,” Lonnie shrugs. “You kind of looked like death this weekend.”

“Thanks,” Catra drawls sarcastically, shoving a mouthful of bland mashed potato into her mouth and hoping that it can end the conversation.

“You and Adora must have worked things out,” Lonnie hums smugly.

“Getting there,” Catra says, strangely gratified when Lonnie blinks into an expression of genuine surprise.

“Huh,” Lonnie says and nods.

Entrapta and Scorpia keep yammering on in the background.

Lonnie smiles, bumps into Catra with her shoulder and turns back to her plate.

“Hey,” Catra pipes up a beat later, after another tasteless, fortifying mouthful of food.

Lonnie glances up, eyebrow arched in anticipation.

“Thanks for checking in,” Catra manages, a little embarrassed but determined to get through it.

“Yean,” Lonnie shrugs. “No problem, y’know? I’m glad you’re good.”

Catra knows she means it.


	6. You Got Cool (Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, folks, we made it to the end. this chapter's a short one, just to wrap things up. i started this fic fully intending to just write something quick and a little silly, a oneshot to try my hand at these characters for the first time, but it turned into a way longer, way more ambitious, way more serious project in short order. thanks to everyone who stuck it out with me to get here, especially those of you who took the time to kudos or comment here on ao3, to reblog on tumblr, or just to share with your friends. 
> 
> again, i owe a massive debt of gratitude to [shannon](http://chiltongirlsdoitbetter.tumblr.com/) and [amy](https://mostlymilkwood.tumblr.com/) for invaluable beta work and encouragement, this fic wouldn't have been written or finished without them. finally, thanks to [arys](http://arystocrat.tumblr.com/post/180444527108/fellas-the-highschool-au-begins) for graciously giving me the go-ahead when i asked if they would mind if i wrote something inspired by their art. 
> 
> tile from the song by mansions.

“What about school?” Catra asks.

She’s sprawled out in Adora’s bed, her head in Adora’s lap as she runs absent fingers through Catra’s hair and groans her way through a pristine paperback of _Moby Dick._ It’s a Saturday night and there are at least three parties they could be at, but they’re taking things slow, learning how to be around each other in quiet moments again.

It’s been surprisingly nice.

“What about it?” Adora asks, and curls her fingers in toward her palm, running her nails along Catra’s scalp in smooth spirals.

Catra shivers in her lap, almost losing her train of thought before she gathers herself again. “Next year. Where are you going?”

“Oh,” Adora says and finally closes her book. She doesn’t stop rubbing Catra’s scalp, though, just cranes her neck a little to look at her face. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“I thought you said all your top choices made offers.”

“They did. I just haven’t decided yet.”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk about it,” Adora says with a small little shrug, like it’s not a revelation that tilts Catra’s world on its axis.

“What?” Catra asks, slowly pushing herself to sit up next to Adora.

“I mean, I don’t know what your plans are,” Adora continues, frowning just a little. “We should go over what we want to do sometime. Soon, actually, I do need to figure out where I’m gonna go.”

“You _waited_ for me?” Catra asks, her heart pounding so hard she can hear the blood in her ears.

“Still waiting, technically,” Adora continues brightly, no hint of resentment anywhere in her voice, on her face. “I said I would.”

Catra hooks a knee over Adora’s hip, sliding into place over her lap. She curls her palms around Adora’s jaw, feels it in her fingertips when Adora’s breath hitches in response. She tilts Adora’s mouth up to hers slow, so Adora has time to pull back if she wants to.

But she stays.

She stays, she stays, she stays.

Catra leans in to meet her.

X.x.x

The game between the Academy and Bright Moon Prep comes and goes with a remarkable lack of drama.

Catra had kind of built it up in her head as this showdown, this critical test of their relationship, a make-or-break moment. But by the time the game actually rolls around, she’s left dealing with the fact that their make or break moments came and went in the weeks after the reckless decision to crash Bright Moon’s stupid dance and all the fallout from brining Adora back into her orbit.

The game is just another softball game. They play under the blazing hot sun, it’s excruciatingly boring, and it lasts way longer than she expects it to, even after having sat through hundreds of hours of the sport already.

The weirdest part is seeing Adora back on Academy grounds in another school’s uniform. But it doesn’t sting the way it used to, seeing her in Bright Moon white and gold.

Catra wears Adora’s old Academy jersey anyway, and cheers for the home team just because. They lose handily, Catra knew they would, but it’s fun to wave an obnoxious red and black Horde Academy foam finger around anyway, just for the look on Adora’s face.

Adora breaks away from her team after only a brief celebration, jogging up to Catra’s perch on the top of the bleachers, heedless of the murderous stares she’s cultivating from betrayed looking Academy students.

“You know, I find it a little bit suspicious that in all the years I’ve known you, the only time you managed to dig up any school spirit just so happens to be the one time I’m playing against the Horde,” Adora murmurs. She’s sweaty and flushed with victory, stealing a move out of Catra’s own playbook to lean way down into Catra’s personal space, bracing one knee on the metal bench to lock Catra in place.

She’s honestly a little impressed.

“What can I say?” Catra grins lazily. She twines a hand in the slightly damp polyester of Adora’s jersey and yanks her down closer, not to be outdone. Adora’s cocky smirk wobbles just a little and Catra doesn’t bother holding back a throaty laugh because this is _so easy_ and she loves that about it. “Nothing gets me going like a good rivalry.”

Adora _grins_ and Catra kisses her there, where everyone can see. After a moment, Adora’s hands, gentle but sure, rise up to cup her face and the warmth pouring from her palms rushes straight into Catra’s chest.

Later, Catra lingers on the curb while the rest of the Bright Moon team piles back into their bus for the short trip back across town. Adora’s got an arm around Catra’s shoulders while she chats idly with a former teammate, steady and casual, the kind of effortless affection Catra didn’t let herself dream of wanting before.

It’s perfect for a moment and then something shifts.

That feeling, that sudden falling sensation. Eyes on her back. Impending doom.

Catra cranes her neck slowly, spies Weaver watching from the entrance to the school, feels her body tense in Adora’s gentle hold.

Adora notices too, shifting subtly to follow Catra’s gaze.

Weaver glides across the space between them, like all she was waiting for was their attention so she could make her entrance appropriately dramatic.

Catra tries to keep her face neutral, tries to shift away from Adora.

“Hey,” Adora says, low. She squeezes Catra a little, rubs soothing circles on her arm with the side of her thumb but keeps her grip loose so Catra’s not stuck in place. If she moves away again, she’ll be able to pull free. “It’s okay.”

“Adora,” Weaver says, voice taut with authority. “You played well.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Adora says politely and offers nothing more.

Weaver waits a beat and then another, smiling brittlely at Adora’s pointed silence. “It was a shame to lose you this year.”

“Bright Moon’s been a great opportunity for me,” Adora allows.

“A shame, too, to see you so… distracted,” Weaver says, not hiding her disgust as she eyes Catra up and down. “I always hoped you’d avoid such trivialities. Focus on your studies. There are many pitfalls for an athlete of your caliber, Adora. As many opportunities for failure as for success.”

“I’m aware,” Adora says. “It’s why I’m so grateful to have the support of a great school with a really impressive athletics department, like Bright Moon. And my friends, of course. And my girlfriend.”

“I’m sure,” Weaver says stiffly and nods. “Well. It’s always rewarding to see a pupil of mine succeed, no matter where. Good luck to you, Adora.”

Adora nods and waits in silence until Weaver turns and leaves.

“Girlfriend?” Catra repeats, quietly.

“I mean, yeah,” Adora says, suddenly sheepish. “If you want.”

“Yeah,” Catra says. “Yeah.”

Adora beams, using the arm still curled around Catra’s shoulders to drag her closer. She kisses Catra’s temple, buries her face in Catra’s neck. Catra wraps her arms around Adora’s waist, ignores the fact that Weaver might still be lurking somewhere in the distance, watching them. She leans into Adora, who takes her weight effortlessly, presses another sweet kiss to Catra’s neck.

It feels like something important sliding into place. It feels like a promise.

X.x.x

“A movie night?” Catra repeats, incredulous.

“Yeah!” Adora nods, smiling her brightest, most charming smile. The one she always flashes when she’s trying to change someone’s mind without looking like she’s manipulating them. Somehow knowing she’s being played doesn’t make it less effective and Catra feels her reluctance start to waver. “It’ll be fun. You can bring your friends.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Catra asks, unable to shake the memory of her last attempt to hang with Adora’s friends and what a terrible disaster _that_ had been.

“Everyone’s gonna be on their best behavior, promise,” Adora nods. “It was Glimmer and Bow’s idea, actually.”

“Glimmer?” Catra’s not sure why Adora thought that was supposed to _sell_ her on the idea.

“And Bow,” Adora repeats, leaning in to peck the tip of Catra’s nose. “Trust me?”

And she does, so she agrees. And, miraculously, so do all her friends.

Which is how they end up sprawled out across the living room at Glimmer’s frankly obscenely decadent house, four hours into a Lord of the Rings marathon that could last anywhere from the end of this current movie to well into tomorrow morning.

Upon their arrival, Glimmer had awkwardly offered her Horde guests access to a variety of wine coolers that, judging by her weird uptightness, she’d probably stolen from her mom. Catra had declined, along with Entrapta. Drinking hadn’t helped last time and she’s trying to do better now, even if she feels a little self-conscious, a little obvious. She waits for Lonnie or Rogelio to notice and give her a hard time, joke about how whipped she is.

But all that happens is Adora pulling into a short, tight hug, complete with a sloppy kiss to the side of her neck and a happy little hum when Catra opts for a can of neon orange soda instead.

The night goes surprisingly smoothly, with most of the tension arising from an invigorating, only half-serious argument between Catra and Glimmer after Catra mentions her obviously _correct_ opinion that Sauron is metal as shit and a total badass and Glimmer counters with a predictable assertion that he was _clearly_ “the personification of evil with absolutely no redeeming qualities!”

At Bow and Adora’s increasingly nervous insistence, they agree to disagree.

Entrapta seems surprisingly at home amongst her old friends, the tension Catra had been expecting to remain between them never quite materializing. She seems content to have a larger audience to ramble to about the various filmmaking techniques at work and the changes from the novels to the films.

Scorpia and The Beer Pong Guy strike up a weird camaraderie sometime around the second/third movie spawned from a weirdly intense mutual appreciation of Gimli and Legolas.

Somewhere into the last film Catra blinks awake, nestled in Adora’s arms, sitting in her lap with her back leaned into Adora’s front. The movie’s still playing, volume low, blue light flickering across the living room. Entrapta, Bow, Scorpia and Sea Hawk are the only ones left awake, at least far as Catra can tell, huddled up together and talking in low voices.

Glimmer’s asleep on the other side of the couch, sharing the long, soft blanket that’s draped over Catra and Adora as well. Mermista’s asleep in Sea Hawk’s lap on the floor, Perfuma sprawled out on the loveseat across from them.

Everything feels warm and slow and fuzzy at the edges. Catra lets her eyes drift shut again, fingers falling down to trace absent shapes on the bare skin of Adora’s arms around her middle. Adora’s gentle breathing against her neck tickles just a little, but the soothing rhythm of the rise and fall of her chest is more effective than any lullaby or sleep-aid.

Catra gives herself over to rest once more.

X.x.x

It’s Catra’s second school dance ever, and her last.

Senior prom.

She’d always scoffed before at the idea, at the ridiculousness of a bunch of dumb teenagers swathed in their fanciest duds, awkwardly shuffling around a gym or a hotel ballroom just to look back on it thirty years later as the greatest night of their lives.

Barf.

But when Adora had asked, casual but serious, if Catra would be her date she couldn’t deny the way her heart leapt into her throat, or the weird mixture of fear and excitement she felt at the thought.

“Me?” Catra repeated, trying to laugh. “You sure? After last time?”

“Well, it’d be cool if you didn’t set any fires this time,” Adora teased, only the barest hint of unease coloring her voice.

“Okay, weirdly enough, that part wasn’t us,” Catra points out.

“Well?” Adora prompts after a moment and then looks sheepish. “I mean, you can think about it, if you want. You don’t have to answer now. And I don’t want you to go if you think you’d have a bad time. We could just, I dunno, stay in or something. Maybe get dinner instead.”

“You’re really serious?” Catra asks, because even though the sincerity is pouring off Adora in waves, part of her can’t quite believe it. “You want to go to your senior prom with _me?_ ”

“I want to go everywhere with you,” Adora says simply, punctuating the statement with a shrug. 

“Oh,” Catra says, then pauses to chew on her lip. Adora smiles at her, softly, and reaches up a thumb to gently free Catra’s bottom lip from her teeth. Catra doesn’t choose to smile as much as it sort of blooms out of her before she purses her lips, pressing a kiss to the pad of Adora’s thumb. “Fine, but I’m wearing a suit.”

Adora’s smile is slow and bright and it fills up the whole room. “Perfect.”

X.x.x

It’s not until well after the limo Glimmer’s mom rented picks her up outside of the Academy, not until after caving pathetically quickly into posing for group photos in the courtyard, not until after rushing the dance floor with the rest of the group that she realizes how seamlessly she’s been folded into Adora’s Bright Moon entourage.

The exact moment it clicks is actually a few hours in, bumping into Glimmer at the punch bowl, and smiling reflexively as Glimmer fills her cup.

It’s straight punch, thick and syrupy sweet, with no bite of alcohol anywhere to be found. And she’s drinking it because she’s thirsty from dancing, not because it feels like the walls are closing in, like she needs something to dull the too-sharp edges of the world around her.

And it feels so _normal_.

She expected that if the moment came, it would feel like defeat. Like a surrender, giving up the sharp edge of confrontation that kept her safe, even as it cut her palms.

She thought she’d feel weak.

But the song changes, something slow, and she wanders back into the crowd, finding Adora almost immediately.

Adora, who is bright pink and radiant under the stupid flashing disco lights.

Adora, whose smile pours into every cracked, gaping space in Catra’s body and fills her up with warmth.

Adora who drapes her arms around Catra’s shoulders as lets herself be lead back onto the dance floor.

Adora who waited, Adora who wants her.

It’s a nice slow dance.

Catra shuffles closer and tries to make it last.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a kudos or a comment. I'm still on [tumblr](http://explosionshark.tumblr.com) for some reason, if you wanna be extra generous and reblog the chapter!


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